Spectrum, Google Fiber lines vandalized in Kansas City as part of rising trend

Law enforcement is investigating several incidents of vandalism to Spectrum and Google Fiber lines in the Kansas City metro in May, part of a recent trend of vandalism to network infrastructure across the country.

Three Spectrum fiber optic lines were cut in the area on a recent Saturday afternoon, according to a spokesperson for the company. Restoration to the lines began that Saturday and was completed early Sunday morning.

Spectrum is offering a reward of up to $25,000 for information that leads to an arrest. Those with information may call the Spectrum tip line at 833-404-8477.

Google Fiber lines in the area were also purposely cut, and a police report was filed, a company representative said. In a statement, Andy Simpson, the general manager for Google Fiber’s central region, pointed to “strong evidence of vandalism.”

Kansas City and Kansas City, Kansas, police said they are investigating the Spectrum vandalism. The FBI office in Kansas City is aware of the matter and remains in contact with local law enforcement, authorities said.

In the metro, vandalism to network infrastructure has grown over the last nine months.

There is not a concrete motive as to why vandals choose to damage telecommunication lines, officials said. Historically, there has been a copper angle to these acts of vandalism. Vandals take sections of copper from these lines to resell. However, fiber optic lines do not contain copper and instead use thin strands of glass to transmit signals.

The incidents come as part of what The Internet & Television Association, an industry lobbying group, said was a wave of vandalism to network infrastructure across the country. A report released by the group last year said there had been 5,770 intentional incidents of theft and vandalism between June and December 2024.

The report noted 305 incidents in Missouri and 22 in Kansas during that period.

The group pointed to the rising value of copper as a factor, even in incidents where there is no copper.

“In the indiscriminate search for copper, even modern communications facilities, such as fiber-optic transmission lines and wireless communications towers that have no copper, have been sabotaged,” the report said. “These incidents of theft and vandalism have become increasingly common and create unnecessary service disruptions that threaten and harm American citizens, consumers and businesses.”

Simpson says that Google Fiber hopes the public engages in “see something, say something” if they see someone tampering with telecommunication lines.

“If people do see — folks out that don’t seem like their utility workers or otherwise — that’s important to us is that people speak up when they see something,” he said.

“Getting our customers back up is the most important kind of aspect of managing and maintaining our network and providing the service, and so that’s what we focus on is how quickly can we respond and get crews and teams on site to fix the outage and repair it,” Simpson said.

He went on to say that, when incidents happen, the goal is to get connections to customers back up “in the shortest amount of time possible.”

The Star’s Nathan Pilling contributed reporting.

This story was originally published May 23, 2025 at 4:36 PM.