Saw31
High Seas Rogue
...or nights, I guess. 
Baltimore Officials Puzzled By Stolen Light Poles
Police: Man Arrested Not Linked To Thefts
POSTED: 12:18 pm EST November 25, 2005
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</TD><TD class=storyToolsTableTD id=storyToolsTableTD2></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!--startindex-->BALTIMORE -- Some streets of this crime-weary city are getting darker at night because thieves are stealing 30-foot light poles, presumably to sell as scrap metal.
About 130 aluminum light poles have disappeared in the last several weeks, puzzling authorities and prompting residents to wonder how the 250-pound objects are being stolen.
"I've been here 23 years, and I've seen just about everything," Mike Decker, owner of Decker's Salvage Co. "People will steal anything here."
The culprits appear to have gone so far as dressing up as utility crews, police say, and placing orange traffic cones around the poles about to be felled, to avoid arousing suspicion among motorists.
The missing poles have become yet another sign of desperation in one of the country's most violent cities. Last year, Baltimore, with a population about one-twelfth that of New York City's, had a homicide rate more than five times as high.
An illegal drug trade fuels much of the violence. Health officials say 40,000 addicts live among Baltimore's estimated 650,000 residents. For at least a decade, addicts who cash in scrap metal to pay for their next fix have been ripping metal pipes, radiators and wires out of vacant houses, and prying cast-iron security grates and downspouts from buildings.
But the boldness of the latest thefts has startled even law enforcement officials.
"It definitely is brazen," said Officer Nicole Monroe, a city police spokeswoman. "It surprises me that people would be so brazen as to do something like this."
Police have no suspects, Monroe said. On Nov. 9, a man was arrested and charged with theft after he was spotted in East Baltimore with a light pole sticking out the window of a station wagon. It turns out, however, that that particular pole had been knocked down by a vehicle, and the man has not been linked to any pole thefts.
Lynn Smith, the manager at the Modern Junk and Salvage Company in Baltimore, said the thieves' quest for quick cash did not surprise her.
"They find any way they can to get the metal and then the money in Baltimore," Smith said. "They don't care how they get it."
Baltimore Officials Puzzled By Stolen Light Poles
Police: Man Arrested Not Linked To Thefts
POSTED: 12:18 pm EST November 25, 2005
<TABLE class=storyToolsTable><TBODY><TR><TD class=storyToolsTableTD id=storyToolsTableTD1>Email This Story | Print This Story
</TD><TD class=storyToolsTableTD id=storyToolsTableTD2></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!--startindex-->BALTIMORE -- Some streets of this crime-weary city are getting darker at night because thieves are stealing 30-foot light poles, presumably to sell as scrap metal.
About 130 aluminum light poles have disappeared in the last several weeks, puzzling authorities and prompting residents to wonder how the 250-pound objects are being stolen.
"I've been here 23 years, and I've seen just about everything," Mike Decker, owner of Decker's Salvage Co. "People will steal anything here."
The culprits appear to have gone so far as dressing up as utility crews, police say, and placing orange traffic cones around the poles about to be felled, to avoid arousing suspicion among motorists.
The missing poles have become yet another sign of desperation in one of the country's most violent cities. Last year, Baltimore, with a population about one-twelfth that of New York City's, had a homicide rate more than five times as high.
An illegal drug trade fuels much of the violence. Health officials say 40,000 addicts live among Baltimore's estimated 650,000 residents. For at least a decade, addicts who cash in scrap metal to pay for their next fix have been ripping metal pipes, radiators and wires out of vacant houses, and prying cast-iron security grates and downspouts from buildings.
But the boldness of the latest thefts has startled even law enforcement officials.
"It definitely is brazen," said Officer Nicole Monroe, a city police spokeswoman. "It surprises me that people would be so brazen as to do something like this."
Police have no suspects, Monroe said. On Nov. 9, a man was arrested and charged with theft after he was spotted in East Baltimore with a light pole sticking out the window of a station wagon. It turns out, however, that that particular pole had been knocked down by a vehicle, and the man has not been linked to any pole thefts.
Lynn Smith, the manager at the Modern Junk and Salvage Company in Baltimore, said the thieves' quest for quick cash did not surprise her.
"They find any way they can to get the metal and then the money in Baltimore," Smith said. "They don't care how they get it."
