Heaps of recovered copper wire—weighing in at more than 2,000 pounds—glimmered behind Los Angeles City Council Members Kevin de León and Traci Park on Tuesday, July 30, as they announced a $200,000 additional investment in the city’s Heavy Metal Task Force.
The task force works to prevent metal thefts, which have caused expensive lighting, telecommunication and safety issues across the city. Thieves have cost the city estimated tens of millions of dollars in damage, according to De León, by stripping copper and other metals to sell for scrap.
“Together with our community support and continued vigilance, we will ensure that our neighborhoods get the safety they deserve and our public infrastructure is protected,” De León said.
The task force was created in February 2024, and since its inception the joint operation between the Los Angeles Police Department’s Central Bureau and the Bureau of Street Lighting has made 82 arrests, sixty of which are on felony charges.
The additional investment announced on Tuesday brings the task force’s total funding from the city to $600,000. In addition to the 2,000 pounds of stolen copper wire that has been recovered, the task force has also recovered nine firearms.
“Wire theft is not a victimless crime,” Park said. “The wire sitting here before us represents a street light that no longer works, a sidewalk shrouded in darkness, a community that no longer feels safe.”
Copper metal thefts have affected many parts of L.A.
In June 2024, 11 metal plaques engraved with the names of stellar local school teachers, which lined part of Victory Boulevard in Canoga Park and Warner Center, were chiseled out of the ground, likely to be sold for scrap.
And in December 2023, copper wire was stolen from lighting fixtures along L.A.’s newly restored Sixth Street Bridge, plummeting sections of the iconic bridge into darkness.
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Estela Lopez, the executive director of the downtown industrial business improvement district, spoke about the copper wire theft impacts she has seen. Lopez said the industrial district, which encompasses 64 blocks of downtown L.A., has 702 street lights—but 40 percent of the lights were out earlier this year, after crucial copper wires were stripped from them.
“We have a workforce that has to come to work very early in the morning,” Lopez said. “It’s dark and it’s dangerous when our men and women come to work. A neighborhood is unsafe when it’s dark. If it’s dark, you don’t want to work there, you don’t want to park your car there, you don’t want to shop there and you don’t want to live there.”
In addition to plunging streets into darkness, copper wire theft can also disrupt internet and cell service, according to Noel Pallais, a representative of AT&T. More than 800 pounds of the stolen copper wire that has been recovered is telecommunication wire.
On Tuesday, De León and Park also announced two motions they have submitted to the city council to combat metal theft.
One motion would prohibit the possession of telecommunications cable by any individuals or businesses other than telecommunications companies, subcontractors and recyclers. The other motion would call for the etching or labeling of copper wire owned by the city, so it can be better identified if stolen. These motions have yet to be voted on by the general city council.
“Each lamp post is an ATM machine for (thieves),” De León said. “That’s why we need to harden our infrastructure to make it that much more challenging to steal the copper wire.”
