I know there is an old thread out there somewhere concerning church burglaries, but I could not find it.

This morning, I arrived at my church at around 7:45 AM., to open up the building. Our maintenance man is out of state, so I was filling in for him. As i finished unlocking, I heard a stange noise coming from one of our air conditioning units on the east side of our auditorium. We actually have 6 central air conditioning units located on the east side of our auditorium.

To my amazement, I noticed that covers were off two of the units. After further investigating, I found that somebody had taken the casings off the units and had tried to steal the copper out of the units. On one unit, they bent the fan back to the compressor (that was the one making all the noise which caught my attention), and the fan was banging against the compressor.

On the unit next to it, the casing was removed, and although they didn't get the copper out of that unit, the copper line that feeds that unit and connects to the upstairs of the church, was cut, and that copper was taken. These were old units but they were still working well. As I looked towards the other units, I saw something that really irked me. They had taken the casing completely apart on one of our newer units, and took all of the copper out of it. Then, they took the copper that was going from the unit to the building. The only thing left was the fan and the compressor.

At a vacant house next to the church, which we own, they cut the lines on the unit, and tried to gut it also.

They must have been scared away, because they left a crescent wrench behind, and you could tell that they were in process of tearing the other air units apart. All of this vandalism and theft for copper. It will probably cost the church over $3,000.00 to get the units repaired and replaced.

I did call the police and they came out and, not only took a report, but the officer also had his fingerprint kit with him, and was able to get a good palm print and a good fingerprint. The officers that came were very polite and friendly, and went out of their way to help us.

I just can't believe, in this day and time, that somebody would come on to church property and steal from God and His church.

There are some messed up people out there Keith. They don't think of anything but themselves.

Sad.

I tend to wonder if they did it for the copper, or more just to vandalize the church. Still, that's just sad.

Makes me remember the time I showed up early to my church when I was younger. Back then I opened/locked the doors and ran the sound. I found one of our doors shattered, and all of our sound equipment missing. Needless to say, we had to call another sister church and beg to use a few speakers and 1 mic.

Sorry to hear about that Keith... it's really sad.

I just wonder when they will get the guts to knock over the cop shop. Yes. It is ashame. I doubt God would give his blessing to them.

Keith,

Sorry to hear that. It seems no place is immune anymore. Very sad.

I tend to wonder if they did it for the copper, or more just to vandalize the church. Still, that's just sad....
Very sad, but I'm guessing it was more to take the copper. I've heard stories of people stripping houses of copper wiring to sell it to scrap yards for drug money. From what I understand, copper scrap brings in some pretty decent geld. I would think that if someone just wanted to merely vandalize anything much less churches that they would have just broke some windows or spray-painted the walls. Seems like a lot of trouble to just mess with A/C units.