PASADENA — Police arrested two men late Saturday after they were caught trying to steal hundreds of feet of copper wiring from a Pasadena cell phone tower, authorities said.
John Michael White, 51, of Fontana and Donald Robert Fish, 44, of Hesperia were booked on suspicion of grand theft of copper wire following the incident, which was first reported about 8:50 p.m. in the 300 block of West Washington Boulevard, according to Pasadena police officials and Los Angeles County booking records.
Officers responded to a report that someone was stealing wire from a cell tower located on the property of a cement company, Pasadena police Lt. Jason Clawson said.
They encountered Fish and detained him near the cell tower, the lieutenant said. “The second suspect fled into the brush along the 210 Freeway.”
Pasadena police, with help from a police helicopter and California Highway Patrol officers, searched the area and found the second suspect, later identified as White, hiding in some bushes, Clawson said.
The wiring, which the men had allegedly been trying to load into a truck when caught, was recovered, he said.
After cutting locks with bolt cutters, “They were pulling out hundreds of feet of cable out of the boxes,” Clawson said. “It appears that three different companies had copper wires pulled from the vault at that location,” he added.
Clawson said the failed theft caused more than $50,000 worth of damage to the cell tower.