A pair of parolees were caught on camera using a truck to rip copper wire from a freeway overpass south of Fresno amid a rash of similar thefts targeting the valuable wiring.
A California Highway Police plane captured the two male suspects in the act before deploying ground units to arrest the thieves, who faced multiple charges.
The air unit’s night-vision camera showed officers arresting one of the men, who was shown backwards until officers took him into custody.
Copper wire theft has plagued California for years, with thieves often targeting streetlights and plunging neighborhoods into darkness.
Los Angeles has been particularly hard hit as the value of the metal creeps upward. Most of the stolen wire turns up in scrap markets as thieves try to sell it for profit.
Some heartless crooks have even stooped to stealing copper wire from Little League fields.
LA politicians have responded by pushing a plan to hit homeowners with a tax to fix the city’s streetlights.
It comes after the city rejected an entrepreneur’s cheap and simple fix to stop the copper wire crisis.
Wire theft costs LA more than $20 million a year.
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