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Copper thieves hit sports parks throughout the Kingwood area - Your Houston News:

Posted: Friday, November 2, 2012 4:07 pm
By JENNIFER SUMMER
The screams roared from the stands at the Kingwood Girls’ Softball fields located on Woodland Hills drive as the girls made their way around the bases.
Those cheers and applause might be silenced for some time after thieves struck the KGSA fields, stripping the electrical wires out of 90 percent of the light poles, breaking open the junction boxes and pulling as much copper wire from their field lighting at they could get away with in one night sometime between Oct. 30 and 31.
According to the electrician, the thieves pulled as much as they could from the poles and what they could not, they cut short.
Without the wiring, they cannot light their fields for the Kingwood Girls’ Softball league to play after dusk thus disrupting their end of season games originally scheduled for play Nov. 1.
The KGSA board members and coaches called a special meeting Nov. 1 to discuss how they wanted to make repairs and how the planned to proceed.
“After the thieves stripped the wires and we found out what happened, we had an electrician come out to the fields to evaluate the costs and lock up all of the boxes. This will cost us thousands of dollars to repair,” Jose Enriquez with KGSA said at the fields before the meeting.
Kingwood Electric was called to determine the best way to fix the issues and early estimates show that each field will require $6,000 to $8,000 in repairs to prevent this from happening again but they have four fields so repairs could be close to $20,000 to repair this correctly.
They also had a Houston Police officer survey the damage with the electrician who filed a police report about the thefts.
This is not the first time the KGSA fields or any other fields and property have been hit by copper thieves in the past couple of months.
At the Kingwood Service Association Parks committee meeting also Nov. 1, the park stewards discussed extensive damage at the soccer fields at River Grove Park, baseball fields at Deer Ridge Park and the Kingwood Service Association’s electrical boxes at the entrance into Kingwood on Northpark Drive at Loop 494.
“This is the fourth time this year we have had to make repairs because of copper theft but this time they did the most damage. We need help to make these repairs. As an organization, we are not ready to absorb the total cost of all of the repairs for the electrical boxes. We had finally got to the point where we had collected enough money to start planning for capital improvement projects to better our fields for the teams,” Enriquez said.
“This hurts our girls who want to play softball and have fun.”
The fields are leased by the respective sports teams who use their particular field for a fee and are responsible for the repairs and improvements. KSA parks committee will follow up with HPD with the police reports already filed for the other damages and see how they can help the sports teams whether it is adding more security or assist with some funding.
“We have had all sorts of things happen at our parks and other electrical structures. It is has been rough,” Ethel McCormick of KSA said at the parks committee.
The KGSA board members made the decision to start a PayPal account and ask for any donations from community interested in helping with the repairs to the electrical boxes at the fields. 

Anybody who has ever had kids play sports at the local parks or coached knows how expensive it can be.
This type of theft makes me ........
I'd be iced if I completed that last statement.
I hope somebody has a lead to catch the scum who did this.
THERE IS NOTHING LOWER IN THIS WORLD THAN A THIEF! 

Cool at least they are finding ways to feed their families 

Does the league not have any insurances for this type of theft? 

THERE IS NOTHING LOWER IN THIS WORLD THAN A THIEF!

well.... there is one (1). But I won't won't say his name here. 

Cool at least they are finding ways to feed their families 

I hope your joking! 

She's a joke. 

Why what's wrong with people feeding their families.

Times are tough and people with money for kids activities can afford to help those in need.

Not being selfish are ya? 

Everybody's gotta eat, right? I mean, I don't think BHO would have a problem with it. 

Exactly just redistributing. You should all be proud of yourselves for helping these people and their families 

Isn't Bo's mantra take from the haves and give to the have nots? It seems these thieves were doing just that. 

And the good people of Kingwood should be proud of their ability to help 

Perfection, if you're NOT kidding....

May you BURN IN HELL!
The sports are available to ALL kids.
The organizations ask that everyone pays, but I know when I was coaching my daughter, we always had girls playing that couldn't afford the full price. I DONATED 100's of hours as well as dollars, to allow EVERYONE a chance to play.
These thieves STOLE that from every girl in the league. 

Ol Ag 89: I think she was just pointing out the obvious. No one needs to burn in hell over this. 

What is the obvious, that she thinks it o.k. To ruin kids sports and call it good? 

It's called sarcasm. 

And I said......

If your not kidding........ 

And Im saying she was. Just so ya know. 

Does the league not have any insurances for this type of theft? 

The answer is maybe...
But the real issue is that the season ends and the adult league starts up....
A night time league, that will now play in the dark? 

One more decent thread hijacked by the lacking! 

insurance or NOT a thief is a thief and should be slammed with the highest punishment. Lets set up a lynch mob to catch them! (j/k)

I hate people that steal, its just wrong to take things that aren't yours! I feel these recycle places giving people money for copper need to be shut down and loose their co's because they are causing this! 

Many things taken from Faux Squaw people...
 

Psalm help me out...
What was taken? 

So sick of these copper thieves! I sure hope they are caught! 

Thing is it cost way more to fix and repair the damage from when these people "low lifes" steal the wire than they get for doing it.If you do not change the way the installations were they will repeat when it is repaired. They stole our feeder wire at our rc flying club last year and it took us almost 3 months before we got power back to the field that the club had to pay for, which was not in the operating budget.
If the law would come down on the metal and scrape iron buyers and make the sellers show proof and ID when selling large sums of copper wire it would not make it as easy on the thieves to sell. 

Reefr,
I agree, maybe may the scrap yards treat this like pawn items......
If you don't have proper I.d., and can't prove your an electrician or can provide a verifiable invoice showing you purchased as scrap, the yard could notify the authorities. 

I thought you had to show iD to sell copper now. 

scrap yards treat this like pawn items..


I am guessing you've never been to a scrap yard?

They do not care at all, whatsoever who brings what in.

I am willing to bet that most people who take copper and heavy metals to scrap yards scavenge or steal it. You should see the kind of folks who drop off junk there for measly amounts of cash.

And the type of wire and stuff they take in there, you know most of it is stolen. 

My point exactly.
I'm not for govt interference, but the same can be said for pawn shops 20 years ago.
I had a truck load of tools stolen 20 plus years ago and the thief was so lazy they went to a pawn shop less than a mile from where items were stolen. The pawn broker, after a police investigation, lost money on that deal.
I also understand copper wire all looks the same..... Very hard to identify, but if they were made to " hold to verify", they make think twice about the "shady" characters they deal with. 

Usually the scrap yard guys are themselves shady characters! 

As are attorneys and used car sales people......lol