Richmond has apparently become a hotspot statewide for copper thefts, officials said at a Tuesday press conference, and local law enforcement agencies say they’re serious about catching and convicting offenders.
According to Richmond Police Chief Bisa French, copper wiring thefts in Richmond have spiked in the last year, mostly due to unhoused individuals selling copper.
From September 2022 to September 2023, there were 20 reported copper incidents compared to 220 reports since September 2023. In the last year, she said, 10 arrests have been made.
According to a June 2024 Forbes report, the rise in electric vehicles and renewable energy has increased the demand for copper, increasing its value. According to Commodity.com, today’s copper price is about $4 per pound.
Copper thefts are on the rise in California despite regulations such as California’s AB 844, which was passed in 2008 to require recyclers to document copper transactions, according to Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors member John Gioia, who represents District 1, west Contra Costa County.
“We are not proud that Stockton and Richmond are two of the hotspots in California, although this occurs everywhere around the state,” Gioia said at a press conference in North Richmond, where he was joined by Contra Costa County Chief Assistant District Attorney Simon O’Connell and San Joaquin County District Attorney Ron Freitas.
Gioia said lights with copper wiring along the Bay Trail near where he lives were repeatedly stolen.
“For over a year we didn’t have lights along a very popular section of the Bay Trail, a wide area, which made it more unsafe at night,” Gioia said, adding that as the city continued to replace it, thieves continued to steal it.
Gioia said eventually the city of Richmond found a new way to install the wiring and it hasn’t been stolen since.
“It costs local government a significant amount of money,” he said.
One nearby copper theft interrupted 911 communications for a week; another killed someone
In recent months, copper thieves have targeted local utility and communications wiring around west Contra Costa County, disrupting emergency dispatchers, hospitals and businesses.
One theft, which happened in Pinole on June 22 along San Pablo Avenue, disabled the 911 communications dispatch system, affecting somewhere between 75,000 to 100,000 residents in that city and in Hercules and San Pablo, according to El Cerrito Police Chief Paul Keith. Two men were arrested, and it took AT&T about a week to restore the lines. In the aftermath, Contra Costa County’s dispatch center took calls from the affected cities.
In Richmond, a man’s body was found inside an underground PG&E vault on Aug. 20 near South Second Street and Cutting Boulevard after an apparent theft involving two other suspects, according to Richmond police. The resulting power outage affected more than 1,500 residents in south Richmond, according to news reports, as first responders worked for 12 hours to recover the man’s body from the substation.
“Our department is working with businesses, utility providers and community members and those partnerships have led to those arrests,” French said. “These arrests were possible mainly due to very observant community members who saw something that they thought was off and reported them to our dispatch center.”
According to Freitas, San Joaquin County’s “See something, say something” campaign, along with a $5,000 reward for information on thefts, resulted in a 90% decrease in copper wire thefts. He believes that copper wire thieves have now moved to neighboring counties.
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“For over a year we didn’t have lights along a very popular section of the Bay Trail, a wide area, which made it more unsafe at night.”
— Supervisor John Gioia, on the local impacts of copper wire thefts
AT&T is now offering $5,000 rewards for information that leads to arrests and convictions for copper cable thefts and illegal sales in Contra Costa County, according to Tedi Vriheas, AT&T Vice President of External Affairs.
“We are working with several law enforcement agencies around the state and have different pending rewards across the state,” she said.
Vriheas said that copper theft related service disruptions are “costly” for the company, which now is taking a proactive approach using litigation. Earlier Tuesday, AT&T filed a lawsuit in San Joaquin County against AlCo Recycling — which operates locations in San Leandro and Stockton — for continuing to process stolen copper.
“It takes a lot of time and overtime. We get the call that a network is down, and we immediately move our teams to the location to assess and repair. It’s very costly,” she said. “It takes a lot of time and energy away from productivity. We are incredibly grateful to our law enforcement and our elected leaders for taking a stand and being tough on crime.”
