Up On The Rooftop: Alleged Tulsa Copper Thief Captured

Police arrested a 30-year-old man after a Tulsa Public Schools officer spotted him by video surveillance on an elementary school rooftop.

Police booked Carlos Carson on three complaints of larceny of copper wire.

The school officer called police after spotting a man with a flashlight on top of Walt Whitman Elementary School near some air conditioning units around 5:30 a.m. Saturday.

When Tulsa Police arrived at the school in the 3900 block of North Lansing Avenue, they saw him jump from the roof of the school and take off running, according to a Tulsa Police sergeant at the scene.

Police say Carson made it about a block before they found him hiding in the front yard of a house in the 3800 block of North Lansing Place.

Officers say three large air conditioning units had been dismantled.

He's in the Tulsa jail on the theft complaints and court costs stemming from a previous conviction for drug possession and false impersonation in 2002.