Politics & Government

Brash Thief Gets Scrappy with City Property

Knocked-over fire hydrant is stolen within minutes, and when police call public works about it, they learn that's not the only infrastructure missing.

 

A man with a dark blue pickup truck is putting his pedal to our metal.

He's stealing any scrappable city property he can find that isn't nailed down

Find out what's happening in Wauwatosawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Police were called at 8:25 a.m. Tuesday to the corner of Blue Mound Road and North 113th Street on a report that a semi-trailer truck driver had struck and dismounted a fire hydrant while making a turn.

However, when police arrived, they found the truck but no hydrant. The truck driver said a man driving a dark blue pickup truck had stopped and loaded into his back seat and driven off. 

Find out what's happening in Wauwatosawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

He said he thought at the moment that the man was supposed to be picking up that hydrant, and only when police arrived at take the report on his accident did he realize the hydrant was being stolen.

Police contacted the Department of Public Works to make sure it could not have been a city employee sent to fetch the hydrant, and they were told, "No."

In fact, the department called back in awhile to say that another city worker had reported seeing a man driving a dark blue Dodge Dakota pickup stealing a stop sign and pole from a construction zone on West Meinecke Street at Pasadena Boulevard. He did not get a license number.

Video from the 7-Eleven store at 11216 Blue Mound Rd., where the hydrant ended up after being dragged there by the semi, clearly showed the theft in progress, but glare on the license plate prevented police from reading the number. The replacement cost of a fire hydrant to the city is about $950. The value of the stop sign was not reported.

It can be assumed that the thief is stealing the city's steel for scrap value, not trying to start his own public works department.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

More from Wauwatosa