MIAMI (WSVN) - A man posing as a T-Mobile worker is back on solid ground after he tore clamps off a Miami cell tower, police said.
City of Miami Police said reports of the man near Northwest 29th Street and 13th Avenue came in around 7 a.m. on Wednesday.
According to police, the cellphone company called authorities when they found out a man was impersonating an employee.
Around 11 a.m., the man was brought down and interviewed by police.
“He apologized, and right now the negotiating team is talking to him,” said Miami Police Officer Michael Vega.
Detectives said the man, identified as 38-year-old Richard Smith, shut off the cell tower, causing an alarm to go off.
The sirens prompted a real T-Mobile worker to be dispatched to the transmitter and check on the situation. When the worker arrived, they found Smith who tried to convince the T-Mobile worker to climb with him.
“The T-Mobile worker gets on the scene and sees that where you turn on and off the power, it was shut of — so, this was manually done — and notices that there’s somebody on the tower,” added Vega. “He starts talking about God and [asks the worker], ‘Please, see the view with me.'”
Video footage captured Smith, wearing a vibrant red shirt, climbing the tower like a jungle gym level by level, as high up as 150 feet in the air, with a Bible tucked in his waistband.
“It’s crazy, like Spider-Man.” said onlooker Nima Zandy.
“He tampered with the equipment up there. He threw things down, he wasn’t listening to officers’ commands to come down,” said Vega.
At one point, he was seen unhooking clamps that connect power to the cell tower.
“Those gray boxes that you see up on the tower, they are actually very hot,” said Vega. “So he knows what he’s doing, because he’s avoiding touching those boxes.”
Officials said that some cellphone services may be affected by this incident. Authorities were forced to block off the nearby area as they investigated.
“He was saying that, ‘I’ve got a job to do, I’ve got to finish my job,'” said Vega.
Although he was seen throwing objects off the tower, Smith’s intentions remain unknown.
Crisis negotiators spent about four hours speaking with Smith.
Meanwhile, local business owners like Zandy, who works for Keto Kitchen | 2GO, were also affected.
“The delivery guy had to park all the way over there, and then we had to come with everything,” he said. “It was really complicated.”
When he came down, at around 11 a.m., Smith thanked the first responders there.
“Once he felt that his job was done, then he came down voluntarily, shook hands with the officers, with the firefighters there,” said Vega. “He thanked them all and cooperated 100% with us.”
T-Mobile released the following statement:
After our systems alerted us that there was a service issue at this site, which we and other providers lease from a vendor, our field technician responded, determined that there was an unauthorized entry, and called local authorities. We are grateful to the Miami Police Department and Miami Fire Rescue for their response and will continue to support their investigation. Fortunately, everyone is safe and overlapping coverage in the area will continue to ensure customers remain connected.
T-Mobile
After he came down, Smith was taken into custody to get checked out by paramedics.
He was charged with burglary of unoccupied structure and criminal mischief over $1,000.
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