SALT LAKE CITY — Two brothers accused of stealing copper wiring were lucky not to cause a train wreck, according to court documents.
Thomas Jeffery Ward, 36, and Tyson Joseph Ward, 44, both of Wellington, were charged Friday in Grand County’s 7th District Court with theft and criminal mischief causing damage to critical infrastructure, both second-degree felonies.
On Thursday, Grand County sheriff’s deputies responded to the Floyd Wash exit off I-70 on a report of a possible copper theft, according to a police affidavit. A Utah Highway Patrol trooper had stopped a Toyota Tacoma with the Ward brothers inside, the affidavit states.
“The bed of the truck was full of signal wire from the Union Pacific Railway just north of I-70,” according to the affidavit.
Union Pacific employees notified law enforcers that cutting the signal wiring “could in fact cause trains to collide with each other as signals could be interrupted” and “this was a serious situation as it had affected all the trains on that track,” the affidavit states.
An Amtrak train passing through the area had to slow down and “be manually flagged through various sections of the track due to the signal wire being cut,” according to the affidavit.
When interviewed by detectives, Tyson Ward said “he thought the wires were inoperable because the wire was down in several areas. Tyson admitted that they had taken the wire as both brothers had recently been laid off from mining coal. Tyson estimated that they had harvested approximately a mile of the copper wire,” the affidavit states.
Thomas Ward told investigators he “figured the line was for communication between the trains. Thomas stated he had done things like this before, that he was on parole for burglary, and he had just got out after five years of prison. Thomas has an extensive criminal history mostly involving theft and burglary,” according to the affidavit.
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October 03, 2020 at 03:42AM
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Police: Brothers steal copper wire from track signals, risk collision - Deseret News
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