Copper thieves kill internet and street lights in Van Nuys

The copper thieves just won’t stop meddling with Los Angeles residents.

Crooks in Van Nuys copped internet cables, leaving residents without service and street lighting.

Surveillance video caught the thieves, one shirtless in a mask and the other in a hoodie, pulling copper wire from underground access hatches. Witnesses say the men pulled the wire from around 3 a.m. near Hazeltine Avenue and Sherman Way.

“I woke up to a big cling,” Candace Cervantes, who recorded the incident, told FOX 11. “It was loud, and I was like, hold on — people have been stealing copper, because I walk these streets.”

One suspect acted as a lookout while the other yanked the wire out from underground.

“He even took a long black cable, tied it to his car,” Cervantes said. “They were trying to really take out as much as they could.”

Police responded slowly to the theft, Cervantes noted, and didn’t seem to worry about being caught.

“It took them over an hour,” she said. “By like 4 a.m., they were done, and they left.”

Copper theft has been an ongoing issue in Los Angeles as the value of the metal creeps upward. Most stolen copper wire is found in scrap markets as thieves try to sell it for profit. Some crooks are even heartless enough to nab copper wire from Little League fields.

Due to the theft, some neighborhoods in Los Angeles are without power and have had thieves strike repeatedly. AT&T workers told FOX 11 that additional crews from Northern California have been brought in to restore service.

“They’ve been without service like four or five months — it’s like, damn,” one worker told the outlet.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass believes solar-powered streetlights will make it harder for thieves to swoop in and plunge neighborhoods into the dark.

Cervantes is fed up.

“It’s annoying, it’s frustrating,” Cervantes said. “They don’t make it any better.”

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