A HAMBURGLAR WHO has been stealing plumbing from area fast-food-restaurant toilets is just the latest twist in a metal-thefts crime epidemic that has left few properties immune.

With the price of metals commodities soaring — copper reached a record high of $4.06 a pound two weeks ago week — police see a direct correlation in the theft of metal objects.

Such thefts are nothing new — cops say they ebb and flow with the economy — but what's different now is that items once considered sacred or even unwanted, like fire hydrants and manhole covers, are now fair game.

"If you leave something alone you might think, 'Who would even want this?'" Darby Township Police Chief Robert Thompson said. "But they will rip it off your house."

The hamburglar has hit at least three restaurants in Delaware County, five in Montgomery County and two in Philadelphia, according to police who are working on the cases.

The first recent incidents were in May at four Montgomery County fast-food joints, East Norriton Detective Jean Morrison said. After targeting a McDonald's in Upper Gwynedd on May 2, the brazen thief apparently went back to the same place three days later and stole the replacement piping.

Only the plumbing for toilets and urinals in men's rooms has been targeted, Morrison said.

"He'd probably draw attention to himself if he went into the women's room," she said. "Or maybe not; you never know."

Police believe that fast-food restaurants are targeted because a thief can get in and out quickly without being noticed.

Police Chief John Eller, of Brookhaven, where men's room plumbing in three fast-food restaurants was stolen within 24 hours last month, said the thieves knew where and how to turn the water off.

"If they're looking at it from the point of getting caught, I guess they feel they can get away with this a little easier than stealing money," Eller said. "I guess everybody has their little thing."

A corporate spokeswoman for Burger King said the theft of bathroom plumbing is not a national trend. Other fast-food chains did not return calls for comment.


Not even churches are safe
Earlier this year, St. Alice's in Upper Darby experienced a problem shared by many homeowners — the theft of copper downspouts. Five times the church put up new downspouts, and five times they were stolen, said Superintendent Michael Chitwood.

The two alleged thieves — an 18-year-old and a 20-year-old — eventually were caught in the act.

In Lansdowne, where many homeowners and businesses replaced their copper downspouts with aluminum ones, the aluminum downspouts are being stolen, Chief Daniel Kortan said.

In Chester, police are dealing with thefts of cast-iron manhole covers.

And in Marple Township, police and residents awoke one day last month to find cast-iron storm covers missing from 15 sewer grates.

Police have had to put plywood and orange cones over the open holes to keep people and animals from falling in, Marple Police Lt. Matthew Richter said. The cost to the borough for the thefts is between $1,600 and $1,700, he said.

Police also report thefts of aluminum siding, copper piping from abandoned and renovated houses, copper wiring and whole-house-unit air conditioners.

"We had an officer respond to people walking down the street carrying an air-conditioning unit at 4:30 in the morning," Chitwood said. "I've seen them take window units, but this is the first time I've seen them steal the whole freaking central air conditioning!"


'A pretty ugly scene'
SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney said that most thefts of company property are at work sites, but that some people have taken live overhead copper wires.

One of the more dangerous SEPTA thefts happened when thieves took the copper wiring that controls the mechanisms for stopping vehicular traffic at SEPTA crossings along the Garrett Road corridor in Upper Darby, Chitwood said.

Peco Energy Co.'s electric substations, the hubs where high voltage is tapped off and converted to lower voltage for distribution to local circuits, have also become targets. Ten area substations were hit from January to May, and 16 were hit last fall, Peco spokesman Michael Wood said.

Thieves break into the stations, often having to scale fences topped with barbed wire, and steal copper wiring within.

It's a dangerous practice, according to Wood, who said the copper wiring represents much of the ground wire for the equipment.

"It's a highly hazardous practice to break into an energized electric substation," Wood said. "It's certainly a risk to those committing the crimes, [to] our customers who receive the service and to the company."

Such break-ins have cost the company as much as tens of thousands of dollars per incident, Wood said.

Back in April, Daniel Peterman, 32, of Upper Darby, was found wandering around a neighborhood, his eyebrows singed and burns covering his hands and face.

Chitwood said it didn't take long for police to discover that Peterman had been hit with about 15,000 volts of electricity when he tried to cut wiring from a Peco utility pole.

Peterman not only knocked himself out but he also knocked out power to about 500 homes for three hours, Chitwood said.

"It goes to say how nuts these guys are," he said. "They will not only jeopardize themselves, but an entire community."

Capt. Jack McGinnis, of Philly's Northeast Detective Division, said the ugliest case of metal theft he's seen occurred in May when a man trying to take metal pieces out of a warehouse door at the abandoned Northern Metals factory got caught between the door and the fiberglass facing of the building.

As the man lay trapped, the torch he was using to cut the metal out of the spring-loaded door set him on fire, McGinnis said.

"There were obviously several people there, because we found a lot of cigarettes and soda bottles, but they just left their buddy there to die," he said. "It was a pretty ugly scene — all just to steal some metal."

Many authorities believe that drug addiction is what leads people to risk their lives for metal. Other experts see the economy as a factor.

"There's a need for money. That's all you can be certain of," Morrison said.

"Until you catch somebody doing it, you don't know if it's a drug habit that is making this happen or someone trying to make ends meet."

McGinnis said his department has locked up people as young as 16 and as old as 60 for metal thefts.

"Some of the older guys we locked up were legitimate contractors," he said. "They still need an income, and there's just not enough money coming in."


China's influence
Police attribute the rise in metal thefts to the rising price of metal. And while those who sell metal to scrap-recycling yards typically receive a fraction of its worth, the return is still higher than ever.

And it's all got to do with China, according to John Mothersole, a Washington, D.C.-based nonferrous-metals analyst for Global Insight, an economic and financial consultant and forecaster.

The rate of growth and the growth in demand in China, have driven up prices to all-time records, such as when copper hit about $4.06 a pound, Mothersole said. Before 2005, the highest price of copper was $1.61 a pound, he said.

"The story we tell our clients is that the Olympics are not just taking place in Beijing," Mothersole said. This is China's coming-out party, and they want to tell the world they've arrived, so they're heavily investing in infrastructure and industry."


Industry standards
Scrap-recycling yards often find themselves under scrutiny when metal thefts skyrocket.

Darby Township Chief Robert Thompson said he often stations officers near the two scrapyards in his municipality to inspect trucks as they come in.

He's said they've recovered everything from fire hydrants to reels of wire worth thousands of dollars. "We've had these scrapyards in our town for as long as I've been here, and for the most part they've never been much of a problem," he said. "Until recently, and that's because people are stealing everything."

Thompson said that one of the scrapyards recently was hit with a violation from the Department of Environmental Protection for allowing automotive fuels to be deposited directly in the ground. He said he's also seen people dumping metal they can't sell along the road as they leave.

In Upper Darby this year, police set up a sting at Accurate Recycling, where workers were buying materials that were clearly marked "Peco" from undercover officers, Chitwood said. In the final sale of the sting, Chitwood said employees bought 200 pounds of copper wire, still on the Peco-marked spool.

"The spool was worth $1,000," Chitwood said. "And they gave us $179 for it."

An Accurate Recycling manager, who declined to give his name, said news organizations often make the industry sound like a "crime syndicate." He said his company would not accept anything that "doesn't look right."

"My standpoint is they need to catch the thieves. We're not stealing it," he said. "And we've been stolen from numerous times. We can be victims, too."

The manager said many sellers have gotten "really offended" when he has asked to see their identification.

But if state House Bill 1742 — the Scrap Material Theft Prevention Act — passes, anyone selling more than $100 worth of scrap material will be required to provide ID and a signature.

The House passed the bill in February, and it awaits the Senate's approval.

Law-enforcement officials said that if the state fails to pass the bill in a timely manner, municipalities must start enacting laws for this crime trend that won't go away.

"I've been a cop a long time, and I saw this in the late '70s," Marple's Richter said.

"But it's come back full-circle again. It's like bell-bottoms. Wait long enough and they'll come back in style."