Russ Spence
Commercial Pressure Wash Expert
Red Cross Copper Thieves by Al Ratcliffe
CBS 42
Copper thieves have hit again, this time two nights in a row on Birmingham's north side. Tuesday night's break-in put a Red Cross building out of commission for good.
The Red Cross stores disaster supplies, like cots and mattresses, at its warehouse on 24th Street north. Now, they say they'll have to look for another place to keep these supplies after copper thieves took all of the building's copper wiring and water pipe Tuesday night.
"Basically, rendering the building inoperable we won't be able to restore power to building, restore plumbing to building," said Josh with The Red Cross Disaster Service.
The Red Cross says the thieves went through a window the first night they hit the building. Then Tuesday night they actually busted through the front door.
Most copper thefts are hard to investigate. Jefferson county investigator Bill Carlson says it's hard to tell what copper belongs where.
“It's not hard to prosecute them. Catching them becomes the problem because we can't identify the copper or where it came from or who owns it," said Carlson.
Birmingham police are handling this case and they may have something to speed up the investigation. The thieves left some DNA on the warehouse floor.
Chris Osborne with The Red Cross said, “Apparently the person who cut the copper tubing injured themselves in the process of doing that and left quite a bit of blood behind."
For now, The Red Cross will have to continue using this space until a new facility can be found.
Osborne added this isn't the only copper theft in the area recently. He says copper tubing was stolen from a nearby building and it flooded. Now that building is being demolished because of the damage caused.
CBS 42
Copper thieves have hit again, this time two nights in a row on Birmingham's north side. Tuesday night's break-in put a Red Cross building out of commission for good.
The Red Cross stores disaster supplies, like cots and mattresses, at its warehouse on 24th Street north. Now, they say they'll have to look for another place to keep these supplies after copper thieves took all of the building's copper wiring and water pipe Tuesday night.
"Basically, rendering the building inoperable we won't be able to restore power to building, restore plumbing to building," said Josh with The Red Cross Disaster Service.
The Red Cross says the thieves went through a window the first night they hit the building. Then Tuesday night they actually busted through the front door.
Most copper thefts are hard to investigate. Jefferson county investigator Bill Carlson says it's hard to tell what copper belongs where.
“It's not hard to prosecute them. Catching them becomes the problem because we can't identify the copper or where it came from or who owns it," said Carlson.
Birmingham police are handling this case and they may have something to speed up the investigation. The thieves left some DNA on the warehouse floor.
Chris Osborne with The Red Cross said, “Apparently the person who cut the copper tubing injured themselves in the process of doing that and left quite a bit of blood behind."
For now, The Red Cross will have to continue using this space until a new facility can be found.
Osborne added this isn't the only copper theft in the area recently. He says copper tubing was stolen from a nearby building and it flooded. Now that building is being demolished because of the damage caused.