A speeding train was forced to stop around 10 a.m. Sunday to avoid striking a thief who was pilfering copper wiring directly from the trackway between the Balboa Park and Daly City stations, according to BART cops and an agency employee with knowledge of the situation.
The crook also is suspected in the Friday morning theft of copper from a trackway just before 2 a.m., BART police spokeswoman Era Jenkins said.
BART police know the suspect, Jenkins said. His identity is not being released due to the ongoing investigation.
“Detectives are actively working on … search warrants,” Jenkins said.
The crook managed to elude law enforcement on Friday, according to the anonymous BART employee, who was not authorized to speak to the media. The suspect’s vehicle was apparently parked illegally near the tracks. Officers who spotted the car called for a tow truck.
“They probably weren’t even aware that he was on the tracks,” the employee said. “I guess they didn’t realize at the time that his vehicle was loaded with BART stuff.”
After the officers left and the tow truck was preparing to take the vehicle away, the thief returned and somehow got his vehicle back, the employee said.
While BART has dealt with copper wire thefts before, the number of such incidents have increased recently, transit agency spokesman Jim Allison said.
The thefts, which mostly occur overnight when trains aren’t running, can be hazardous to both the system and the thieves, Allison said.
“Trains come by sometimes at 80 miles per hour,” he said. “They can come up on people without them even realizing it.”
Thieves target two types of copper wires on BART’s trackway. One returns electricity from the electric third rail to the transit agency’s power supply. Pulling that wiring can cause stray currents potentially able to cause fires, Allison said.
Authorities reported two separate incidents in the last week involving bandits cutting cables and disturbing the train tracks, all in the quest for copper.
The Bay Area Rapid Transit police were called Sunday after a driver operating a moving train spotted a man on the tracks. The man escaped but left behind damaged equipment, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Two days earlier, a transit police officer was patrolling a station at 2 a.m. when he noticed a suspicious pickup truck. The officer questioned two people nearby in connection with possible copper theft, but they denied any wrongdoing.
Transit agencies in the Bay Area acknowledge that copper theft is common and has caused delays in some maintenance projects in the past.
No arrests have been made but police have targeted at least one suspect and a few other persons of interest, BART police Deputy Chief Benson Fairow said.
Fairow said it is unlikely that the burglaries were an inside job by a BART employee, but he would not rule it out.
Police did not provide a suspect description.
The track burglaries have not interrupted daily service, but they have strained the transit agency's electrical system, Allison said.
Also, the repeated crimes are dangerous for the burglars, who risk electrocution or being hit by a train.
BART has incurred labor costs in addition to the price of lost supplies, as crews sometimes must spend more than one shift to replace the wire, he said.
"This is a theft from the taxpayers," BART board director Robert Raburn said, noting that tax dollars pay for stolen goods and repairs.
BART's most costly copper theft occurred in the summer in a Pleasant Hill yard, where burglars
stole a spool of cable set to be used for a construction project in Contra Costa County, Raburn said.
That project has been delayed because of the theft, he said.
BART officials on Tuesday called for authorities to place more accountability on scrap metal yards, which buy the copper wire for $3 to $4 per pound.
"If people weren't buying it, people wouldn't be stealing it," Allison said.
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