BURLINGTON – Bandits armed with pepper spray attacked two employees of a city <link _top>foundry and stole a load of <link _top>copper last night.
Halton police said the two men were leaving work at Tallman <link _top>Bronze on Industrial Street at 11:30 p.m. Thursday when they were confronted by two men who used pepper spray to overpower them.
The pair were then forced back inside the plant.
“They were pepper-sprayed and bound hand and foot,” Halton police Staff Sergeant Brenda Glass said.
The intruders then used a tow motor to load an unspecified quantity of <link _top>copper plates into a van owned by one of the workers and then fled with the load and the 1998 Pontiac mini-van. The bandits also stole one man’s wallet.
The employees managed to free themselves after being tied up for about an hour and called police about 1 a.m..
They were taken to Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital for treatment of effects of pepper spray.
Detectives are now hunting the pair of bandits.
Tallman <link _top>Bronze, located east of Brant Street off the North Service Road, is a specialty <link _top>foundry, specializing in <link _top>non-ferrous castings.
Metals theft is becoming a major problem for police in Ontario as a dramatic increase in <link _top>copper prices -- from 85 cents a pound in 2000 to nearly $4 US a pound this spring -- has thieves scrambling up telephone poles, across church roofs for <link _top>copper gutters, stealing plumbing from construction sites and warehouses and stripping transformer stations of potentially deadly live wires.
