According to a report from The Daily Wire, a stop light had to be removed at a busy intersection in Oakland, California because thieves from the nearby homeless encampment wouldn’t stop stealing the copper wires from inside the light.

City workers replaced the traffic lights with four-way stop signs at the intersection located at East 12th Street and 16th Avenue, DW reports.

 
From The Daily Wire:

The move came after people repeatedly stole copper wire and tampered with the electrical box at the intersection to allegedly steal power.

The city tried putting heavy cement blocks on top of the electrical boxes, but people simply dragged them out of the way, a city spokesman said. The stop signs are temporary, according to the city, but it does not have a timeline for reinstalling the traffic lights.
Neighbors expressed their frustration, and some blamed the homeless encampment around the intersection. The encampment spans about three blocks on 12th Street from 17th and 14th Avenues.

“If you really want to fix the stop sign, I think you really have to clean up this homeless encampment,” Tam Le, owner of Le’s Auto Body & Engine Repair, told CBS San Francisco. He has been running his auto shop on a corner of the intersection for more than 25 years.
“It’s just telling us that the city is giving up on us,” Le said.