The city’s parking enforcement and transportation officers were removed from the field over the weekend after copper wire thieves damaged a key communications tower in Elysian Park, leaving several departments with inoperable radios.
The Los Angeles Police Department was not affected by the outage.
Police apprehended two suspected thieves Saturday after they attempted to strip the tower of copper wiring, officials said.
The damage left Los Angeles Department of Transportation officers unable to use their portable radios to call for assistance and the emergency buttons on their radios inoperable.
“The City’s Information Technology Agency (ITA) is exploring different options to repair the damage to the tower as quickly as possible and has been in communications with all impacted departments,” Mayor Karen Bass’s office said in a prepared statement on Sunday. “ITA radio staff is working with LADOT to identify available functions that remain working in the radios to minimize impacts on their operations.”
As of Monday, officials were still trying to repair the network. Officials from the transportation and technology departments did not reply to messages from The Times.
LAPD Capt. Mike Bland said the issue did not impact the department’s radio system or communications.
Tow truck operators contracted with the LAPD were notified of the outage over the weekend.
Information on the suspected thieves wasn’t immediately available but Bass said they would be “held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
Copper wire thefts have wrought havoc in Los Angeles, darkening the iconic 6th Street Bridge and nearby neighborhoods, cutting off phone access to emergency services for residents, and causing internet outages.
In May, wire thieves were suspected of cutting phone line service to seniors in South Los Angeles. The following month, they caused widespread internet service outages that affected swaths of Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
Last year, blocks of Pico-Union, one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in the city, experienced power outages following thefts.
In 2024, an LAPD Heavy Metal Task Force made more than 100 arrests and recovered thousands of tons of stolen copper. In October, the City Council approved an ordinance creating a rewards program for information leading to arrests.
Despite arrests, the problem has continued to worsen, so much so that city, state and law enforcement officials backed Assembly Bill 476, which strengthens penalties against illegal junk-and-metal dealers who purchase stolen copper wire. Signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the law takes effect Thursday.
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said the bill will give law enforcement the tools to “shut down illegal scrap metal operations that fuel this kind of crime.”
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