Copper wire thieves plunge L.A. neighborhood into darkness

A person burns the plastic off copper wires on a tent-lined street.

By Jireh DengStaff Writer

July 12, 2024 Updated 7:30 AM PT

Once the sun sets in the Pico-Union area, workers and residents approach the streets with trepidation. Here, and in other parts of Los Angeles, copper-wire thieves have stripped them of their sense of safety.

“I had a guy pull a gun on me one night,” said Albert Robles, owner of Robles Carburetors, at Hoover and West 18th streets. Emboldened, he believes, by the cover of darkness, the man was breaking into a car and didn’t want any interference from Robles.

At the Domino’s across the street, Luis Rojas has worked for three years delivering pizzas. Nowadays, he says, fellow pizza delivery drivers are often scared to leave their cars to go knocking on doors along the gloomy corridor of South Union Avenue between Washington and Venice boulevards.

“I used to walk to work,” said Rojas, who lives a brisk 10-minute walk from his employment. Now, it’s frightening. “People can follow you.”

This new layer of fear has become a fact of daily life in Pico-Union, said lifelong resident Aurora Corona. According to locals, entire blocks go dark at night in this L.A. neighborhood that lies west of downtown. One of L.A.’s most densely populated neighborhoods, it is home to about 40,000 people within 1.67 square miles.

The lack of lighting is an issue Corona cares about and part of the reason the retiree joined the Pico-Union Neighborhood Council; she’s secretary and chair of a committee on quality of life and safety.

Pico-Union and the Westlake neighborhood have both been greatly affected by the outages, she said, but noted, “It’s a citywide problem.”

An NBC4 investigation found that of the 223,000 streetlights throughout Los Angeles, 25,000 — or more than 1 in 10 lights — are broken. Vandalism is a problem. Unhoused people sometimes divert power from streetlights to encampments.

“I understand their situation,” said Corona. On Venice Boulevard, she’s seen people living on the streets struggling to stay warm when temperatures drop at night. But rerouting power has caused streetlights to blow out, she said, or even burst into flames.

But the problem of copper-wire theft has skyrocketed. Thieves steal the copper to resell as scrap metal. The Bureau of Street Lighting said theft of copper wire from streetlights rose 800% from 2017 to 2023, NBC reported.

Los Angeles City Council members have been struggling to address copper-wire theft for months, debating whether to levy heavier consequences to deter crime. Thieves absconded with seven miles of copper wire — about $11,000 worth — from the newly rebuilt 6th Street Bridge, plunging the so-called ribbon of light into pitch black last month.

Meanwhile, in the Pico-Union area, Rojas said he’d seen someone — amid the shadows — attempting to break into a car. And he’s noticed that families no longer walk their kids to the nearby Toberman Park and Pico-Union Vest-Pocket Park after the sun goes down.

The Olympic Community Police Station did not respond to The Times’ request for comment on whether crime had increased in the area as the lack of working streetlights plunged streets into darkness. Studies have shown, however, that properly lighted streets can reduce criminal activity.

Yet local residents and business owners have had to wait months on repairs, according to L.A. City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, whose district includes Pico-Union. There have been “delays of over six months for broken streetlights,” she said in a statement.

According to Corona, the city already has spent millions on repairing the damage done to Los Angeles streetlights. But Hernandez says more needs to be spent to “better fund neighborhood services so that our constituents are not left waiting for months for safely lit streets.”

The Bureau of Street Lighting has already attempted different methods of discouraging thefts — camouflaging or better securing electrical boxes. There’s also the option of transitioning to solar power. But those changes “will take at least five years,” Corona said. And in a year where the city is undergoing a budget deficit and cutting city programs, there are many squeaky wheels officials are trying to grease.

“I commend the city for attempting to solve the problem,” said Corona.

Meanwhile, the residents of Pico-Union who are in the dark continue to wait.

“Right now,” said Rojas, “it’s a little scary.”