Their Florida power trip didn’t get very far.
Police pulled over two dim bulbs in a Kia Sorento — as they carried a stolen light pole on the roof, the Jacksonville Times-Union reported.
They had dutifully affixed a warning cloth to the end of their highly conspicuous loot, a Jacksonville Electric Authority utility pole pilfered from a bridge over the Intercoastal Waterway.
A 911 caller saw “two white males, no shirts and several tattoos” putting the pole on top of their SUV on Wednesday morning, the paper reported, citing the arrest report.
The responding officer drove over the Wonderwood Drive bridge, where he noticed the spot where the pole was missing.
He later pulled over the Kia and asked the men where the pole came from. The driver said he was moving the pole because it was lying on the ground near the road.
“When asked why he did not just roll it further into the shoulder, he did not have an answer,” the report said.
Blake Lee Waller, 42, and Victor Walter Apeler, 46, were arrested on grand larceny charges in the theft of the $2,500 pole.
Apeler completed 73 pawn transactions this year, 72 of them related to scrap metal, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
The Jacksonville Police Department posted a photo of the hapless pair sitting on the curb with their arms tied behind their backs.
“These two were caught stealing a JEA pole just this morning! Citizens watching out and officers cleaning up = partnership!” the agency posted on Twitter.
In the wake of Hurricane Irma, about a third of Florida’s population is still without power.