Copper thief causes CenturyLink outage in Kent

A thief who stripped copper from power poles caused a phone outage for about 170 CenturyLink customers.

The outage is along Southeast 208th Street and 140th Avenue Southeast.

Police say when CenturyLink power crews arrived at the site Thursday morning, they found copper had been stripped from power poles and at least one pole was down.

When a supervisor went over to inspect the downed pole, he saw a truck filled with copper wires and a man sleeping inside.

Police were alerted and the man was arrested and the truck was towed away.

Investigators think thieves are taking the copper to recycling centers and selling it as scrap.