Editor’s Note: Copper theft is on the rise across the nation these days with high prices for the metal and a recycling industry that will normally pay people in cash for the copper scrap they bring in. West Seattle Recycling, for example, is currently paying between $3.10 and $3.65 per pound of copper.

A Seattle City Light worker alerted police to a burglary of City Light’s substation on s.w. Morgan St. last Monday. Unknown suspect(s) cut through the west side of the fence and stole around $5,000 worth of copper wiring from the substation. The worker told police the damage done by pilfering all that wire nearly shut the substation down and could have shut down power and light across “a major portion of West Seattle.” A cell phone was found on the ground inside the substation fencing and submitted to evidence by police.

Last weekend police responded to a burglary in progress at a portable school building on the 5900 block of Delridge Way s.w. It was 1:30 a.m on Saturday when police arrived with a K-9 unit and started a search of the school grounds for reported copper wiring thieves. The K-9 found a suspect in the crawl space under one of the portable school buildings. Apparently cool with small confines, the suspect had cut the lock on the crawl space that was only 2 ½ feet high and worked his way 25 feet back. The K-9 went after the suspect (who had no where to go at that point) and after “contacting” him he was arrested for suspicion of burglary, transported to the Southwest Precinct and met there by paramedics who treated him for injuries received in the K-9 Crawlspace treatment. Another reported suspect was never found by police.

A construction site on the 2600 block of California Ave. was robbed on two separate occasions last week by unknown suspects hellbent for copper. On Monday around noon police responded to a call that someone had tried to break into a construction container full of copper pipe. The suspects broke the lock and damaged the doors but were unable to gain entry. The victim told police several construction workers at the site have had tools stolen from the site over the last few weeks. Police came back on Tuesday because overnight someone got back into the site and stole all the copper tubing installed the day before.

Burglaries by block: 2600 California Ave SW (3) , 4100 SW Morgan St, 5600 23rd Ave SW, 10800 Arroyo Beach Pl SW, 9300 44th Ave SW, 3900 SW 102nd St, 9200 2nd Ave SW, 4300 SW Webster St, 4500 Fauntleroy Way SW, 800 S Cloverdale St

Car prowls by block: 3500 SW Kenyon St, 8600 12th Ave SW, 1500 44th Ave SW, 1100 Sunset Ave SW, 4100 SW Edmunds St, 1100 Alki Ave SW, 1700 Alki Ave SW, 3200 40th Ave SW