Sometimes you just go to the well one too many times. That’s the hard lesson learned this week by a 46-year old Dowagiac man who was caught in the act of stripping still more copper wire from an American Electric Power Company facility in Lake Charter Township in the middle of the night.
Baroda-Lake Township Police have been called out on multiple occasions over the past several months on reports of ongoing thefts of valuable copper wire from the AEP site. Lt. Rick Biggart of the Berrien County Sheriff’s Department says that the Sheriff’s Detective Bureau had been contacted for assistance in trapping the thief through establishment of a surveillance detail.
Persistence paid off for both departments when the Dowagiac man showed up shortly before 3am Monday morning and began yet another strike, stealing more copper wire from the utility’s Lake Township facility.
The man, whose identity was withheld pending his arraignment, is charged with resisting arrest, larceny, possession of burglary tools, breaking & entering, possession of stolen property and larceny from yards. He is being held in the Berrien County Jail as the investigation into the string of thefts continues.
In addition to the Berrien Detective’s Bureau and Baroda-Lake Township Police, Berrien County road patrol officers assisted in making the pre-dawn bust yesterday, before still more of the copper wire could disappear into thin air.
