LOS ANGELES (TNND) — An alleged copper wire thief reportedly hid inside a manhole in Los Angeles and refused to come out for nearly four hours.

KABC said the incident happened early Tuesday morning.

Citing the Los Angeles Police Department, the media outlet said authorities responded to a call about a copper wire theft at an underground vault around 2 a.m.

While one person surrendered and was detained at the scene, a second person person "stood down in the vault and refused to come out several hours later," KABC reported.

The media outlet noted that authorities eventually used tear gas canisters to get the suspect out.

By, 6 a.m., the suspect finally emerged from the manhole and was taken into custody, according to reports.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta previously said the telecom industry alone reported nearly 6,000 incidents of copper theft and infrastructure vandalism nationwide between June and December 2024. He said about one-third of the incidents happened in California.

"Bad actors steal encased copper cables and cut them into short lengths before burning them to remove the sheathing to reveal the raw copper inside," Bonta said in a news relaase last summer. "That copper is then typically sold to scrap metal dealers, some of whom, in periods of high demand, are willing to accept the valuable commodity purportedly without knowing its origin. The ripple effect of each act of vandalism, each cable cut, is massive. From public safety to health care, energy, transportation, financial systems, IT, education, and more, life today can hardly function without the infrastructure behind communications systems."