No New Street Sign Thefts Reported

Haddonfield Police Chief John Banning said Friday there were no new reports of street signs missing after 11 were reported stolen last week.

Banning said the sign thefts were all reported last week, but likely occurred over a longer period of time. He said the public works supervisor reported all the thefts at once.

Some of the signs were sawed off, including parts of poles, according to the police report. Banning said the investigation is "leaving all options open."

"It's hard to tell if this is juveniles or college kids taking them for a prank," he said. "I don’t really know how they did it."

Banning said the suspects did not necessarily use saws for all of the thefts. He said they could have bent the signs back and forth until they broke.

The borough had also been plagued by a rash of thefts of copper downspouts on nearly a half-dozen historic-district homes and buildings, including a church, over the last nine months. Police have said those thefts were likely for the scrap-metal value of copper. No arrests have been made for either incident.

Commissioner Ed Borden, the borough public safety director, said the metal in the signs is not valuable.

"This seems to be purposeless vandalism," said Borden, a former Camden County prosecutor. 

Banning said he's still surprised that the theft of street signs or downspouts weren't reported at the time it was happening.

"Some of this would likely be loud and noisy," he said. "It's surprising it could happen and we didn't get a call"

Borden frequently urges Haddonfield residents to be more vigilant.

"Knowing our citizens, if they heard it or saw it, we would have gotten a call," he said. 

The locations of the missing signs include the following intersections:

• Jefferson Avenue and Chews Landing Road
• Mountwell Avenue and Chews Landing Road
• Moore Lane and Warwick Road
• Summit and Washington Avenues
• Estaugh and Euclid Avenues
• Estaugh and Redman Avenues
• Peyton and Redman Avenues
• West End and Redman Avenues
• Lansdowne and Redman Avenues
• Mount Vernon and Avondale Avenues
• Mount Vernon and Linden Avenues