Bishop said the crime seems to rise in response to the price of copper. Thieves typically burn the coating off the wire and sell it at a scrap metal business. People climb utility poles to cut ...

Deputies say the other man in the car, Timothy Poitra, refused to be interviewed by a detective at the time. Poitra is ...

Statewide requirements to help prevent copper wire theft will become law on Jan. 1 despite a lawsuit by the scrap metal workers claiming the legislation will effectively shut down their industry.

Gov. Tim Walz and St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter last spring inspected one of many lamp posts that had been illegally stripped of copper wire at Como Lakeside Pavilion in St. Paul. (Alex Kormann/The ...