Posted on 09/10/2007 1:14:07 PM PDT by Abathar
INDIANAPOLIS -- Police said an Indianapolis man accused of stealing copper wiring from an Indianapolis Power and Light substation committed what could be considered a terrorist act.
Greg Bergfeld, 53, was arrested on Aug. 30 after he tried to take wiring that could have wreaked havoc on the city's power grid.
One week later, Bergfeld was accused of doing the same thing just after getting out of jail, 6News' Dan Spehler reported.
"These gentlemen ran out and grabbed me. I had nothing in my pockets, and the next thing I know, he's charging me with terrorism or some (expletive). I haven't done anything," Bergfeld said on Aug. 30.
Police said Bergfeld took wiring for an IPL substation on East 30th Street and was caught in the act by workers.
According to investigators, the second incident happened at an IPL substation in the 4500 block of East Michigan Avenue.
"Apparently, the suspect did it again. He never learned his lesson the first time," said Indianapolis Metro police Lt. Jeff Duhamell. "It was probably pretty alarming to the officer. It was the same officer who caught the suspect the first time."
Police originally called Bergfield's action "terrorist activity" since the loss of copper ground wire could easily turn an outage or lightning strike into a major disaster.
"It's close enough (that) it could blackout the whole northeast part of the city and county. That's a terrorist act," said Indianapolis Metro police Detective Wallace Shobe on Aug. 30.
The crime has been watched more closely since 9/11. Terrorism charges were not filed, but Bergfeld was charged with criminal mischief and trespass. The second time, he was charged with resisting arrest.
IPL said it has experienced a rash of copper thefts from substations. Surveillance video has been set up in an effort to fight the problem.
This is what I was affraid of, using the word terrorist over something like copper theft. Pretty soon kids throwing snowballs at cars will be called a "terrorist act" diluting the true meaning even further.
But, damn, don’t say that word in conjunction with, say a gun attack on the “Seattle Jewish Center”, or when some a$$ drives his SUV through a whole lot of people hitting and killing several throughout a city... or when a guy goes in a mall, yells “Allah ackbar” and shoots innocent people in a mall.
The terms “terrorist” and “terrorism,” in a non-legal sense, have already been diluted. You are correct, it appears that the terms are now being diluted in the legal arena.
...just needed some beer money most likely.
How true. This isn't terrorism because the man did not mean to instill terror. He meant to steal copper wire. It is repeated attempted theft.
My first take on this, was similar to yours. Then it dawned on me that he was taking ground wire. This would have exposed the grid to a major outage.
While I think it’s a lot more serious than this idiot did, I still admit to thinking this doesn’t reach the level of ‘terrorism’. It was extremely foolish, but not everything is planned to cause harm (in this case a widespread outage), even though it potentially could.
Others will probably disagree.
Yep, seems it can only be used if it ISN’T a terrorist act anymore so that they don’t have CAIR and the ACLU getting involved.
Yea, here we go. All crimes will be linked to "terrorism," all responses will be "dynamic" (sqat teams with machine guns and hand grenades) and everybody is subject to the "Patriot" Act. No warrants required. Let's all worship the can-do-no-wrong cop.
Just peachy, huh?
I absolutely agree. Perhaps the prosecutors have a "new toy" they want to play with but, in so doing they are very short sighted. Likely the real problem here for them is the weak sentencing guidelines or practice of the local judiciary. This crook is just too stubborn, willing to cause chaos and stupid to let loose. He is not a terrorist.
I agree.
While some cops may agree with this “terrorist” terminology, I doubt very much that that the majority would. It’s a very shakey claim.
A while back we had a couple of guys trying to steal wire from a power substation here in town. They both wound up grabbing a live wire and were elecrocuted to death. Another Darwin Award!!
elecrocuted, electrocuted, whatever...
The rise in the theft of copper is astonishing. My husband owns an electrical contracting business and the cost of copper wiring has gone up 200-300% starting last spring or so. On one job he had to replace the ground rods three times because of theft. There have been instances of valuable copper sculptures being stolen and melted down. It’s not a case of beer money. The only way to crack down on this type of theft is to go after the people who buy the “scrap” copper. So far, that isn’t happening.
It is no fun digging out an 8 ft ground rod. What are they selling for now?
That's about the size of it.
And anybody who resists this power-grab obviously doesn't care about stopping terrorists....
True meaning is soon to join the ranks of sincere apology.
I imagine what he is taking is new wire (maybe from a spool) that must be kept on hand for the stray squirrel; he don’t exactly sound like a mastermind of a huge, organized ring.
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