Manteca Police Chief Nick Obligacion knows just how brazen copper thieves can get.A few years back Manteca Police officers were working with Union Pacific targeting motorists who were going around downed crossing arms as a train approached when a copper thief started stripping wire from the downed arms just a dozen feet away from officers.It wasn’t the first time that officers have caught thieves stripping copper wire from safety devices such as crossing arms. And it wasn’t the last.The City of Manteca placed its losses from copper theft from municipal facilities at $80,000 in 2013. The thieves were getting so bad that in 2012 stripped copper wire regularly plunged street lights into darkness in neighborhoods throughout Manteca.At one point in 2008, officials estimated copper theft and resulting damage was in excess of $200,000 a year in Manteca.