Heavy metal: Deputies arrest 9

Scrap metal and copper wire thefts resulted in the arrest of nine people, including three boys from Missouri, Yuba County Sheriff Steve Durfor said Thursday.

Early Wednesday, a caller reported three suspicious people in a black Acura at an equipment yard on Hammonton-Smartville Road in Linda. The car left soon after being spotted but the caller obtained the license number, which matched a car stolen in St. Joseph, Mo., said Durfor.

While deputies were looking for the Acura, residents of a neighboring farm on Griffith Avenue reported seeing a white Ford Ranger being driven around with scrap metal in the bed. Deputies asked operators of Empire Steel, a scrap metal dealer on Township Road in Sutter County, to be on the alert for the truck.

Sutter County detectives stopped the truck near Empire Steel. Owners of the metal, valued at $1,000, were brought to the scene and identified it, while witnesses identified two of the truck's occupants, Durfor said.

Arrested on suspicion of theft and possession of stolen property were Luther Ezell Banks, 38, and Christopher Albert Lis, 26, who share an apartment in the 1900 block of Country Club Court in East Linda, and a 17-year-old boy from Linda whose name was not released.

Detectives found the Acura at the apartment as well as a 14-year-old Missouri boy who had stolen his mother's car and several thousand dollars worth of jewelry the week before in Missouri, said Durfor.

Also at the apartment were three 16-year-old boys, two from Missouri and one from Linda. The four boys were arrested for possession of a stolen vehicle and other property and booked into Bi-County Juvenile Hall.

In an unrelated incident on Wednesday, a witness saw a husband and wife, Norman and Paula Metcalf, both parolees from Linda, stripping casings from copper wire in an orchard on Hammonton-Smartville Road. The couple left on a Quad Runner but left their pickup behind, said Durfor.

The wire had been stolen from a nearby packing plant, he said.

The Metcalfs were spotted by Sutter County deputies in Pleasant Grove and arrested on suspicion of grand theft and related offenses.

The arrests were the latest example of a growing trend in which metal is stolen and sold to scrap metal yards. Proceeds are sometimes used to buy methamphetamine, authorities said.

Durfor said last month following another metal theft case that people have been stealing items such as transformers, irrigation pumps and agricultural equipment for copper wire, sprinkler heads for brass and catalytic converters for platinum. Except for catalytic converters, most thefts are from rural agricultural and industrial properties.

Supervisors in Yuba and Sutter counties late last year approved tighter restrictions on selling metal to scrap metal dealers.