L.A. Unplugged

It is everywhere, but like a snake it is nowhere: copper. Most folk in Los Angeles drive, and to you I state: look at the berm of the bridge the next time you are on a Freeway. The iron grates that allow DWP to enter the circuit have most likely been breached, and there is a damn good chance that the cut copper wires are sticking out from the respective cement hole. Moreover, in some places the wire is jutting out in fashion that suggests that the perpetrator merely leaned over the cement divider and cut the wire as far down as possible after quickly tearing off one side of the plate.

 

Any engineer can divulge the immense municipal cost of such widespread theft. It is within feet—in many instance, INCHES—to thousands of Angelinos daily, yet the Los Angeles City Council is whinging about deficits and all manor of crap that is obvious. I could make a living documenting the daily copper transgressions—I walk most everywhere, and I walk A LOT, what with my one-metre, New York-driven stride, and one of my guns is a camera. 

The following video—shot but a few feet from the government building on Los Angeles and 5th Street—exhibits evidence that government officials have apparently visited this site (unless there is a band of transit vandals with spare rolls of yellow "caution" tape) yet done nothing more than mitigate potential liability. I cannot state that, despite the dramatic loss obvious from Freeway street lighting copper theft, nearly as much has been done.

-BusTard