Here's a crime you don't see every day - unless you live in Baltimore:

Thieves are sawing down aluminum light poles. Some 130 have vanished from Baltimore's streets in the last several weeks, authorities say, presumably sold for scrap metal. But so far the case of the pilfered poles has stumped the police and left many local residents wondering just how someone manages to make off with what would seem to be a conspicuous street fixture.

The poles, which weigh about 250 pounds apiece, have been snatched during the day and in the middle of the night, from two-lane blacktop roads and from parkways with three lanes on either side of grass median strips, in poor areas and in some of the city's most affluent neighborhoods. Left behind are half-foot stubs of metal, with wires that carry 120 volts neatly tied and wrapped in black electric tape.