Cable Thieves..... a comedy of errors?

At 3 am this morning Chris and I were woken by what first appeared to be fireworks right outside our bedroom window. We opened the blind to see the electricity pole across the road arching and then two men casually stroll up towards our house bend down and each pick up an end of electrical cable. On Saturday morning, Beatrice told us a group of cable thieves had been active in our road FOUR times during the week and that she was currently without power. The thieves seemed very aware of danger or having been spotted and we were not sure if they had noticed us so we tried to be as discreet as possible and with a huge amount of adrenalin pumping I managed to call our armed response - Chubb, who informed us they would dispatch a vehicle and call the SA Police. By this stage the men had walked onto our block and onto Beatrice (the neighbour across from our house) driveway into the shadows. Within 5 mins, Chubb was there but the men had managed to "vanish" themselves. I was most concerned that they had gotten into Beatrice's garden and were hiding in the shadows, thus putting her at danger. The Chubb guys had a look around and then decided to move onto other roads. We knew that they were still lurking around and kept a steady eye on the driveway. Every now and then one of them would peek out to check if the coast was clear and move back into the shadows. It is still unclear where they were hiding but a quick look this morning has revealed a blanket and some squashed plants behind a pillar in the driveway. Having finally spoken to Beatrice, we are sure they were hiding under the blanket as she says she noticed it this morning when walking her dogs. How convenient ..... a dark driveway, a pillar to hide behind as well as a grey blanket. No wonder the armed response were not able to see them! Eventually by 4 am the armed response team, which by this stage included ADT called it a night and moved away. Within a couple of minutes one man emerged, checked up an down the road and casually strolled away towards the other cut but uncollected cables. A few minutes later the same thing happened with the second man. While this was happening we again phoned Chubb and told them these men were not done with their thieving and had been spotted again, I also mentioned that thus far there had been NO SAP response. With this we were informed that SAPS had merely dismissed the crime in action and had said that they were to phone City Power regarding cable being stolen as this was not their juristriction. We then phoned 10111 and were given the same story. Chris then asked the person since when is City Power responsible for upholding the law? The person on the other side said true and within a few minutes there was a police patrol car. The police stopped and questioned one of the suspects (judging from his clothes we are sure it was one of the thieves) and carried on driving around the area. By about 5am all seemed to have settled so we called it a night and got back into bed to try get some sleep. At about 5.40am I woke to the same "fireworks". I jumped out of bed, phone in hand to call SAPS again whilst trying to watch out the window. I saw one man dash across the road and then all was still. I told the police that the cable thieves were still busy and that I had seen them again and they should send a car "quick quick quick". They told me they had been already..... I acknowledged this but insisted if they got there soon they would catch the brazen thieves. Again we saw the same guy the police had questioned walking up the road towards the traffic light - only this time he was carrying a bag, clearly he was done for the night and had he wares with him.TWENTY minutes after I had called the police, we heard a siren a few blocks away - well, that's clever why not warn them you coming! We still have no clue what happened to man number two but one thing was clear, they certainly didn't get all the wires they had intended to steal and City Power is at it again trying to restore power to the houses that have been affected. So once again, that's where our taxes go and seems SAP couldn't be bothered to catch a criminal in the dead of winter!