Com-Central.net

You had to figure since the price of scrap went up, thieves would take a shot at war memorial vehicles. The second paragraph pertains to one said tank.

"My buddy that has a large scrap yard called the other day, told me there were over 100 veterans grave markers brought in by some scum bags and the state police were on their way. Thought I might want to show up to lay claim before they got lost in the shuffle. Scum bags were caught on tape and we were able to identify the cemeteries that they were stolen from. Found out last night, the D.A. will keep 6 for evidence and release the rest to me for return to their proper owners. (Veterans graves) County has already replaced the 6 we lost.

A local V.F.W. has an old tank out in front of it's post. Last week one of our drivers happened to be going by and saw a lot of light coming out from under the tank at 3:00 AM. He called the local police and they caught 4 guys attempting to remove the tracks to sell for scrap.

My favorite, it's a pastime to try to steal what ever you can from abandoned mines. Well two Einsteins, decided to try their luck. They swiped the 3 I beams from the entrance of a small working mine. Unfortunately, they did it from the inside when the entrance collapsed. They were there come morning when the owners, (3 brothers) showed up. They got them out, added to their injuries, then called state police and the state and federal mine folks. What no one can figure out is how they planned to remove the beams since they seem to have been afoot. Now the clever criminals claim they had 2 pickups, 1 - 2005 Ford, and 1 - 2007 Tundra. They claim their pickups were stolen while they were trapped, no evidence has been found to support their claim, although there is a huge strip mine, hundreds of feet deep, where it's reported that dozens of vehicles have been dumped and sunk in the water. hehehehehe. Damn lying criminals."

SAd what things are coming to.

We have that problem here in the Missouri Bootheel and North East Arkansas.

Lot of Meth heads running around. They are stripping vacant houses, businesses, and even farm irrigation systems for all the copper, brass, and aluminum. They also have been robbing cemetaries of the bronze vases and ornaments. They set many houses afire when they burn the jackets off wiring. You also find in the county piles of insulation, and I mean a whole cable drums worth, dumped after being stripped by a meticular, strung out meth head. The drug gives them the stamina and concentration to cut and seperate the material. They are now even stealing siding off of houses at night. Waiting for these fools to realize how much aluminum is on an M60 with the fenders and sponson boxes. Meth heads kinda remind me of the creatures in "Legend", Sub-human who will say or do anything to get a fix. Only cure is a "Lead Implant" in my opinion. I have even nastier remedies in mind for the meth lab makers/operators .

Joe D

The biggest issue we have in my neck of the woods are theives steeling large amounts of copper signalling wire from the railroads. So far, luckily it has not caused any serious accidents, only large delays and communter anger. Just a few weeks back the police and customs seized an outbound shipping container going to china with 35 tonnes of the stuff!

Around here there has been news in Indiana regarding salvagers stealing hot power lines from out-of-business factories. Apparently they stole from powered up lines and did not live to sell their goods.

Scrap metal collectors have hit the AP news recently. I read this first on Armytimes.com and this morning on AOL:
news.aol.com/story/_a/...4509990001