Dressed in red and black, “Miami Spider Man” was eventually arrested by police officers after a four hour stint atop a T-Mobile cell tower. Onlookers told WFOR-TV that they spotted the man scaling the cell tower around 7 a.m. and engaging in unusual behavior that attracted a crowd. “The whole street was blocked,” said local business owner Nami Zandy, “And then suddenly we see this person up there climbing and disconnecting cables.”
A T-Mobile worker was already at the tower site at NW 13th Avenue and NW 29th Street because he had noticed that the power was out and was there when it was turned back on later. The unnamed worker called the police when he noticed the unauthorized climber. The man, who was later identified as 38-year-old Richard Smith, claimed that he was a T-Mobile employee and reportedly invited his “co-worker” to come up and enjoy the view with him.
“I’m not used to seeing people climbing up there. I’ve seen people climb the Eiffel Tower — but this? No, never did,” said an astounded Zandy. After negotiating with authorities for several hours, Smith finally agreed to climb back down, according to WFOR-TV.
“Once he was down, he shook hands with every officer that was there, and every firefighter that was there,” said officer Mike Vega of the Miami Police Department. “He tampered with the equipment up there. He threw things down. He wasn’t listening to the officer’s commands to come down. He was saying that ‘I got a job to do, I gotta finish my job.’”
Smith was unable to explain what the job was, but law enforcement said that he caused between $100,000 and $500,000 worth of damage. His actions also resulted in service outages, though a T-Mobile spokesperson noted that the calls could route through other cell towers so that no one was totally without service.
The “Miami Spider Man” has been charged with burglary of an unoccupied structure and criminal mischief.
