Copper Thief Falls Asleep At US Steel After His Crime: Joliet Police

JOLIET, IL — One of the most popular places around the Joliet area for copper thieves to target is the sprawling U.S. Steel property on Joliet's east side along Collins Street. Joliet Patch has written numerous crime stories over these past few years about copper thieves being captured by the Joliet police force around the abandoned U.S. Steel property.

This week, Joliet police made another arrest, and it was someone already familiar to them— Eduardo Davis, age 37. Joliet police took Davis into custody late Monday afternoon on charges of burglary, possession of burglary tools and criminal trespass.

According to Joliet police spokesman Dwayne English, the following events led to Davis' capture:

At 3:53 p.m. Joliet police were conducting a premise check at the US Steel property in the 900 block of Collins Street in response to past burglaries at this location. At the site, Joliet police discovered a Dodge truck on the property. Upon further investigation, the officers found Davis asleep inside the truck. Officers also saw copper scraps and tools to cut metal in plain view in Davis’s vehicle.

Officers questioned Davis, who indicated that he was stealing copper. Davis was placed into custody without incident and the vehicle was towed from the property.

After being processed at the police station and getting his latest mugshot, Davis was let go. He was given his pretrial release notice to appear in Will County court as outlined by the SAFE-T-Act.

In November, Joliet Patch had another crime story about Davis, when he was one of three people arrested by Joliet police in connection with the theft of a truck from a Joliet business located near the McDonough Street Bridge.

Patch reported at the time that the theft of a truck from an important Joliet business to the freight-shipping industry, Illinois Marine Towing, has resulted in Joliet police making three arrests. Joliet police learned that the Ford F-550 truck was stolen the previous night.