An AT&T internet outage stretching from Lockeford to Plymouth began a little after 3:30 p.m. Tuesday after fiber-optic lines were cut and stripped in Amador County, according to the Amador County Sheriff's Office. Several people were arrested in connection with the damage, which investigators say triggered the service disruption across the region.
Ione police responded to an area along Highway 124 near Highway 88, where officers found a vehicle parked nearby along with evidence of cut and stripped fiber-optic cables, according to CBS Sacramento. Deputies joined a search of the nearby woods, and the suspects emerged several hours later covered in mud. Authorities said they found a ladder in the woods that had allegedly been used to reach the utility lines, and Flock camera images showed an extension ladder sticking out of the suspects' truck as it traveled into Amador County, per the sheriff's office. One suspect was allegedly found with drugs in his pocket. The suspects were booked into Amador County jail, though authorities had released neither the suspects' names nor their specific charges at the time of publication. The article included a photograph of the suspects' vehicle, credited to the sheriff's office.
A Pattern of Fiber Cuts Across the County
This is not an isolated incident for Amador County. In a separate case reported by CBS News, a fiber cable cut near Highways 88 and 123 in Ione happened Sunday around 9:25 a.m. and left dispatchers cut off from most 911 calls made in the county. During that outage, the Calaveras County Sheriff's Office dispatch center had to field Amador's 911 and non-emergency calls, with information then emailed over to Amador dispatchers. That cut wasn't fixed until around 5:45 p.m. Sunday.
In that incident, deputies said they located a suspicious car in the same area as the cut and soon learned that three suspects had run into the woods. Inside the vehicle, deputies discovered a pole saw and what the outlet described as copious amounts of stripped copper wire. The sheriff's office identified those three suspects as Elpidio Rivera, Joel Riveravilla and Hialario Lopez, all residents of Stockton — though a separate report from Yahoo News gave slightly different name spellings for two of the men, listing them as Joel Rivera-Villa, 25, and Hialario Lopez-Rodriguez, 35. The evidence does not establish whether that Sunday incident is the same event described in Tuesday's outage.
Sheriff's Office Says Cuts Have Recurred for Weeks
The sheriff's office told the station it has been dealing with a series of AT&T fiber cable cuts that have caused repeated outages to the 911 system, though it remains unclear if the same suspects are responsible for the other cuts in recent weeks. A separate report, from Yahoo News, described the Sunday cut as at least the fourth time AT&T fiber cables had been severed in the area, with a previous instance reported April 30.
Amador County is not the only place dealing with this kind of theft. In a further separate Amador County incident, two Stockton men identified by myMotherLode as 34-year-old Jose Maldonado and 49-year-old Jose Pardo-Gildo were found near cut telephone cables at Highways 124 and 88.
A Statewide Surge in Copper Theft
The problem extends well beyond the foothills. In San Bernardino, nine people were arrested in connection with underground fiber-optic cable theft that caused service outages for two days, according to NBC Los Angeles, which reported that AT&T estimated the damage at about $194,000. Oakland saw a similar disruption when damage to AT&T fiber and copper lines knocked out 911 and non-emergency phone lines for more than a day, with police saying affected services returned to normal around 8:30 a.m. Friday, per NBC Bay Area. Even outside California, Moore County deputies in Southern Pines, North Carolina arrested three Hoke County men accused of cutting fiber-optic lines in October, with the sheriff's office estimating repairs would cost more than $50,000, according to WRAL.
The scale of the problem statewide is significant. California led the nation in reported telecommunications theft and vandalism incidents in 2025, with nearly 6,300 incidents — more than double the number reported in Texas — according to Spectrum News. Officials quoted in that report say thieves are cutting through fiber-optic cables specifically to reach the valuable copper inside, causing outages like the ones that have repeatedly hit Amador County residents and emergency dispatchers alike.
