The man who climbed a cell tower in Miami, Florida, and spent several hours atop the structure, has been arrested by police, who estimate he caused up to $500,000 worth of damage.
Police have named the man as 38-year-old Richard Smith, who claimed to be a T-Mobile worker. Smith shut down the main power at the bottom of the tower and shut down a T-Mobile carrier, which alerted the telco to the site as it noted an outage in the area.
Smith reportedly climbed the tower without any harness or climbing equipment in the early hours of this morning, before spending several hours at the site, despite pleas from emergency services to come down.
According to CBS News, Miami police said that a T-Mobile employee went to the tower at NW 13th Avenue and NW 29th Street around 5:00 am on April 3 after noticing the power at the site was off.
The worker then switched the power back on, before he noticed a man in the tower, claiming to be a T-Mobile worker.
After confronting the man, the T-Mobile employee told police he realized the man was lying. The trespasser then asked the worker to join him at the top of the tower to "enjoy the view," and spoke to him about God.
Smith eventually came down at around 11:00 am, where he was arrested. Local media reports said that he was calm and shook hands with the first responders at the site.
He was arrested on charges of burglary and criminal mischief, and according to a police report, caused between $100,000 and $500,000 worth of damage after his actions led to cellular outages for customers.
Police said that Smith likely had experience of working on cell towers or climbing, due to the way he was moving around the structure.
Emergency services blocked off the roads around the tower, leading to disruption in the area for much of this morning.
"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," said T-Mobile in a statement to DCD.
"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."
Just last month, four men were arrested for posing at T-Mobile contractors, while allegedly stealing telecom cables to sell for scrap in West Boylston, Massachusetts.
This article has been updated due to developments from the original article posted earlier today