New law cracks down on metal thieves

Waiting period for payment and notification system are key parts of an effort to discourage ‘scrappers’

By Christian Gaston

The Forest Grove News-Times, Dec 23, 2009, Updated Dec 23, 2009

‘Very inconvenient’

But under the new rules, if a reported theft matches items brought into a recycler, instead of sending out a check, they’ll just call police.

“Now we wouldn’t be out-of-pocket for the money and we’d have an actual physical address that the police can follow up on,” Steinfeld said.

While waiting three days for a check for your recycled metal sounds like a pain, it’s not enough to turn off legitimate customers, McKey said.

“If you’re a meth addict and you need that cash for your next hit, this is every inconvenient,” McKey said.

And making the sale of stolen metal more inconvenient could reduce the incentive to steal metal in the first place.

“If you take away a market for that I’m hoping it will cut down on the thefts,” McKey said.

Having an aluminum ladder stolen from your backyard is annoying, but for contractors and farmers, the theft of copper tubing, wiring or other metal goods is very costly.

Toll is staggering

And the total toll of an individual thief’s work is often staggering.

Take the case of Timothy Ray Gann, who’s currently serving a 12-year prison term for a three-month burglary spree seven years ago, during which Gann managed to steal at least $47,000 worth of jewelry, stereo equipment and irrigation pipe from locations across the west end of the county.

In 2002, Gann, one of the most prolific metal thieves prosecuted in Washington County, pleaded guilty to 31 counts of burglary and theft.

But come January, one of Gann’s main motivations to steal — his ability to trade irrigation pipe in for cash at local recyclers — will be gone.

“It would not have worked today,” McKey said.

Today, a copy of Gann’s driver’s license would be attached to every sales receipt, he’d be on video camera for every sale and, come January, he’d have to wait three days and provide a valid address to get paid.

Those steps could lead police straight to him.

And police and prosecutors hope that the added measures, which leave a paper trail of evidence leading directly to suspects, will make potential thieves think twice before they run off with a coil of tubing.

“I won’t say it that it won’t happen because it still will,” McKey said. “It’ll just be a lot more risky.”

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