Quincy man arrested for wire theft

MOSES LAKE — A Quincy man was arrested Thursday night for stealing wire from an irrigation circle, according to a statement from the Grant County Sheriff’s Office.

Joseph Dean Byrd, 41, was arrested on suspicion of first-degree attempted theft and first-degree malicious mischief, according to the statement. 

At about 8 p.m., a GCSO deputy received a call from a farmer about an alert from a security monitor for farm property near Roads I and 18 Northeast, about 15 miles north of Moses Lake, the GCSO wrote. While two deputies were inspecting a circle pivot missing about $6,000 of electrical wires, another deputy stopped a suspicious vehicle nearby, driven by Byrd. In the back seat the deputy saw a pair of heavy-duty pruning shears, sections of cut electrical wire and copper fragments. Deputies matched a shoe print at the scene to the shoes Byrd was wearing, and surveillance camera footage from the scene matched the vehicle recorded coming and going on a canal road adjacent to the farm property. Byrd was arrested and booked into Grant County Jail and his vehicle was impounded pending a search warrant.

Byrd remained listed on the Grant County Jail inmate roster as of Saturday.