According to police officials in Dayton, Ohio, a local man who was supposed to remove asbestos from the old Dunbar High School was in fact perpetrating a scheme to defraud the school and steal valuable copper piping from the walls of the building.

James Gillispie, age 37, has now been charged with the theft of hundreds of pounds of copper from the old school. According to Dayton police, Gillispie made off with more than 200 pounds of copper from the school. In addition, he threatened his co-workers, stating that if they did not sell the scrap copper harvested from the school building, they would lose their jobs.

Removing asbestos is a very important job, as exposure to even a small amount of the deadly fibrous material is considered unsafe. Inhaling or ingesting asbestos fibers has been conclusively linked to the development of mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer. The disease typically lies dormant for up to fifty years before an individual begins to suffer from mesothelioma symptoms.

The cancer, which affects thousands of new patients worldwide each year, has no known cure. However, palliative treatment methods like chemotherapy can help some patients fend off the cancer. Sadly, most mesothelioma patients succumb to the cancer within two years of being diagnosed.

According to police, Gillispie sold the copper on multiple occasions, totaling at least nine separate incidents. It has not yet been reported if Gillispie’s copper harvesting scheme exposed him or his men to asbestos that may have been in the walls or ceilings of the aging school building.

Asbestos removal in our country’s schools is a hot-button issue, as it is often delayed due to lack of funding within a school district’s budget. Asbestos abatement is expensive in and of itself, but the replacement of asbestos-containing materials within a school building can also be quite costly.

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