Detroit city officials held a press conference this week to publicly beg criminals to stop stealing fire hydrants. Not drugs. Not cars. Not catalytic converters. Fire hydrants. The big red things bolted into the ground that keep buildings from burning to ashes. Those. They’re stealing those now.
And the city’s official response was basically: “Hey guys? Could you, like, not?” Peak governance. Absolutely stunning work.
Nearly 75 fire hydrants on Detroit’s west side have been destroyed in just the last 48 hours. Thieves are ripping out the brass nozzles and stems — the parts firefighters actually connect their hoses to — and hauling them to scrap yards for about ten to fifteen bucks a pop. That’s the going rate for public safety in Detroit. Fifteen dollars. Your house burns down because some guy needed beer money, and the fire department shows up to find a hole in the ground where the hydrant used to be.
Chuck Simms, Detroit’s Executive Fire Commissioner, summed it up: “It’s not only a theft of the fire hydrant, but it’s a theft of our citizens, our residents, our firefighters, and public safety in general.” Which is a very polite way of saying someone is going to die because of this.
Here’s the part that should make your blood boil. The stolen parts are worth ten to fifteen dollars at the scrap yard. The cost to replace them? Five hundred to six hundred dollars per hydrant with specialty parts. So some genius is netting fifteen bucks while costing taxpayers six hundred. That’s a 4,000% loss ratio. If that were a business model, it would be a Democrat budget proposal.
But it gets worse. These aren’t random one-off thefts. Whoever is doing this is hitting multiple hydrants in a row along the same streets. That means when the Detroit Fire Department rolls up to your house fire, the nearest working hydrant might be 600 to 900 feet away. For those of you playing along at home, that’s two to three football fields. Your house is engulfed, the trucks are there, the firefighters are ready — and they’re standing around a decapitated hydrant with no water.
Sleep well, Detroit.
Now, let’s talk about the city’s big plan to address this crisis. They’re warning scrap yards not to buy the stolen parts. “If we find you purchasing them, we’re going to take action to the fullest extent that we possibly can.” Oh good. A strongly worded suggestion. That’ll do it. The guys who are literally dismantling critical safety infrastructure for pocket change are definitely going to be deterred by a press release.
This is what happens when you let Democrats run a city for 60 years straight. And I don’t say that to be cute — I say it because it’s math. Detroit hasn’t had a Republican mayor since 1962. Sixty-four years of uninterrupted progressive governance, and the result is a city where people are stealing the equipment that prevents buildings from burning down, and the government’s response is to hold a press conference about it.
They can’t stop the theft. They can’t protect the hydrants. They can’t even scare the scrap yards into cooperating. All they can do is stand behind a podium and say “totally unacceptable” while the city literally dismantles itself around them.
Remember, this is the same Detroit that received billions in federal and state aid over the years. The same Detroit that went through the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history in 2013 and was supposed to come out the other side “revitalized.” The same Detroit that progressives love to hold up as a comeback story whenever they need a talking point.
Some comeback. They’re scrapping the fire hydrants.
You know what other cities don’t have this problem? Cities where criminals face actual consequences. Cities where the police are allowed to police. Cities where the district attorney doesn’t treat property crime like a parking ticket. But that’s not how Detroit rolls. In Detroit, the criminals set the terms, and the government negotiates.
“Please stop stealing our fire hydrants” is not a law enforcement strategy. It’s a white flag. It’s a city admitting, out loud, on camera, that it cannot perform the most basic function of government: keeping people safe.
Every single one of those 75 destroyed hydrants is a neighborhood where a family could lose everything in a fire because the city can’t protect a piece of metal bolted to the street. Fifteen bucks at the scrap yard. Six hundred to replace. And somewhere in Detroit tonight, a firefighter is going to show up to a blaze, look at the empty hole in the sidewalk, and have to figure out how to save someone’s life from 900 feet away.
But hey — at least they said “please.”
