Fire hydrants uprooted for valuable metal parts

A man dressed in an orange fluorescent vest showed up in a white utility truck, turned off water to a fire hydrant on the street and appeared to work on it.

What could be wrong with that?

Authorities now believe the man was a metal thief, hauling off entire 80- to 100-pound hydrants or cannibalizing them for their bronze and brass parts and selling them as scrap metal for about $1.60 a pound.

Replacing them can cost the public agencies between $1,000 to $1,800 each.

Since early April, 45 hydrants — 25 from one water agency — in San Bernardino and Riverside counties have been reported stolen or vandalized for their metal.

“When I heard about the incidents from our employees, I couldn’t believe it,” said Eldon Horst, general manager of the Jurupa Community Services District, which had 16 hydrants stolen or damaged since April 12.

On Wednesday a Riverside County man believed to be responsible for the brazen daytime thefts and vandalisms was jailed, said an investigator with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

Brian Burian, 45, was taken into custody at his home in the Riverside County community of Rubidoux, west of Riverside, after the owner of a Colton scrap yard identified him as the person who sold him scrap metal, said Deputy Roger Young.

Young, who investigates metal thefts, said his inspection of the scrap metal determined it was from a dismantled fire hydrant.

A scrap yard can be charged with a felony for buying a fire hydrant or parts of one. But in this case, the parts had been cut up so as to make them nearly unrecognizable, Young said.

“A layman wouldn’t be able to tell it was a hydrant,” he said. “It was just pieces of brass and bronze.”

Burian is being held at West Valley Detention Center on suspicion of receiving stolen property. He is due in court this morning.

Young said employees of the West Valley Water District in the city of San Bernardino, which had at least 25 hydrants vandalized, played a crucial role in cracking the case by staking out an area plagued by thefts.

On Tuesday, employees followed a truck seen in the Agua Mansa area on the border between Riverside and San Bernardino counties to Burian’s home and notified Young.

“They did awesome work,” Young said. “Without their help it would have been hard to stop this guy.”

Young said West Valley officials estimated their losses at between $50,000 and $80,000.

Burian was arrested in connection with the San Bernardino incidents, Young said.

“I believe 100 percent that he’s involved in the Riverside County thefts as well,” Young said.

Lt. Art Gonzales said Thursday the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department was seeking an arrest warrant for Burian in connection with one of the thefts after he was identified by a witness. The investigation is continuing.

“He has not been ruled out in the other 19 incidents,” Gonzales said.

Water company officials in both counties said the person responsible had expertise in shutting off the water supply to the hydrant before removing it and hauling it away.

The Rubidoux Community Services District had three hydrants taken and a fourth vandalized for its metal parts, said Steve Appel, the assistant general manager.

Young said witnesses in the San Bernardino incidents reported that the man wore an orange fluorescent construction vest and drove a white utility truck.

Gonzales said a witness in one of the Riverside thefts told investigators that when he approached the man tampering with the hydrant, the man said he was refurbishing it.

Burian has multiple convictions in both counties for receiving stolen property, drug possession and burglary.

By SANDRA STOKLEY
The Press-Enterprise

Teens’ MySpace Prank Leads To Arrest

A group of boys who posed as a 15-year-old girl for an Internet prank ended up helping California police arrest a 48-year-old man who tried to meet the fictitious teenager for sex, authorities said.

The five boys had created a fake profile of a girl on MySpace.com — a social networking Web site — to cheer up a friend who had recently broken up with his girlfriend. Soon after, a man began sending messages to the “girl” and their conversations began to have sexual overtones, said Fontana police Sgt. William Megenney.

The man also sent the “girl” his picture and arranged to meet her at a public park in Fontana, 65 miles east of Los Angeles. The boys went to the park and, when the man arrived, they called police.

“He admits to detectives he was going to go up there, meet this 15-year-old girl and have sex,” Megenney said.

Michael Ramos, 48, of Fontana, was booked into West Valley Detention Center on Monday for investigation of felony attempted lewd and lascivious conduct with a child and for an outstanding warrant, Megenney said. He was being held at the West Valley Detention Center on $105,000 bail, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Web site.

The California arrest is the fourth case in two weeks involving the extremely popular MySpace site.

On March 3, the FBI arrested two men in what prosecutors said were the first federal sexual assault charges involving MySpace. The unrelated cases involved Connecticut girls who were 11 and 14, the FBI said.

And, in February, a middle school student in Costa Mesa, Calif., allegedly threatened a female classmate on MySpace. The posting asked “Who here in the (group name) wants to take a shotgun and blast her in the head over a thousand times?” The student who allegedly posted the message is facing suspension from the school. Twenty other students in the Internet group were suspended from school for viewing the Web page, school officials said.

Authorities nationwide have expressed concern that the popular site puts children at risk for abuse, but the CEO of MySpace said the site remains safe. He encouraged parents to teach children the same commonsense rules on the Internet that they learn in the real world.

“If you go to the mall and start talking to strange people, bad things can happen,” Chris DeWolfe, a co-founder of the site, said in a telephone interview. “You’ve got to take the same precautions on the Internet.”