Posted on 02/07/2020 8:05:28 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
CHEROKEE, Iowa -- A Marcus, Iowa, man was sentenced Monday to 10 years in prison for stealing copper from wind turbine sites around Marcus and burglarizing several businesses.
Andrew Bock, 35, pleaded guilty in Cherokee County District Court to first-degree criminal mischief, third-degree burglary and third-offense possession of a controlled substance.
Bock was charged with stealing copper and materials valued at $7,390 from nine wind turbine sites on Oct. 12 or Oct. 13. He was accused of causing $11,080 in damage to the wind turbine sites.
(Excerpt) Read more at siouxcityjournal.com ...
Andrew Bock hates the environment!
DANG!
Many metal thefts from wind turbine generation systems result in immediate execution of a capital sentence without a lingering trial. i.e. electrocution.
Maybe he is a birdwatcher and was trying to save them from mutilation.
Is he a member of “The Monkey Wrench Gang”?
It takes an awful lot of physical labor to steal copper wiring in that fashion. Too bad he wasn’t putting all that effort into a legal job. And then, all for how much?
$7390.? Not worth it. I’ve heard of similar thieves who, after all that planning, pulling and sneaking around, end up getting themselves electrocuted due to a small mis-step.
In my control room I have an area of concrete floor where it is all black with the outline of two shoes in regular color concrete. That is all that was left from an accident about 4 years ago.
Darwin usually gets these people.
I steal from AC/Heat pumps during the day when no one is home. Piece of cake.
10 years seems harsh. Was he wearing a red cap?
Damn! Dems are all set to decriminalize everything around illegal immigration and this poor slob gets ten years for stealing less than $20,000.
I guess the judge stuck him with the “environmental insult enhancement” which required quadrupling his sentence.
Most likely he was taking the easy to get to stuff like copper grounding cables. We had to keep a close eye on such cables and connections in the power plants I worked at.
I was working on a boiler many years ago when the electrician in another part of the room jumped a couple of 480 volt busbars with his fishtape. FLASH BOOM! The whole room lit up like the sun for a moment. He was uninjured, too! I think his fishtape just vaporized.
Copper is actually worth quite a bit in bulk. They stopped making coins out of it because it’s worth more than coins.
Meth and electricity are a bad mix. People resort to theft to hide their drug purchasing habits from spouse and family. Off the books cash.
I worked in power plants for a lot of years. 1000 degree superheated steam was worrisome, high voltage was damn scary, these idiots that risk screwing with electrical conduits are probably ignorant of what it can do. Generally you don’t get a second shot at screwing up.
Always breathe in full before making your connection. That way the blast doesn't allow the gasp reflex to cause you to suck that vaporized copper blast gas into your lungs. That's what kills you if you survive the blast. The burned lungs from the 10,000 degree flash. Like the sun.
Steam! The only form of energy that cuts thru the pipes like a buzz saw. That scares me to death. I have replaced hundreds of miles of steam pipe that the steam just slices right thru. Fascinating physics and chemistries there.
I worked with a man killed by 2 pound saturated steam on a hot zeolite water softener. He broke a live steam line flange working on the wrong unit. Sucked in the steam and cooked his lungs. Working with power it pays to be careful. Stealing from power facilities, is down right stupid.
Stealing the copper pipes out of empty houses is considerably safer
If he got a tenth of the $7900, I’d be amazed. Most likely he netted a few hundred dollars for those thefts.
Ten years though? Man, how deep of a criminal record did this dude have?
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