MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – A man sitting atop a traffic-light pole caused cars to stop and spectators to spill onto the street in Miami Beach and film the stunt with their cell phones on Friday around rush hour.
The pole climber then led Miami Beach Police on a chase before he was arrested Friday.
Around 5:30 p.m., police said they were called to 10th Street and Collins Avenue where they found a man, later identified as Todd Fitzroy Boothe, 29, of Miramar, sitting on top of a traffic-light post.
Boothe’s antics slowed traffic to almost a complete stop and bystanders began to walk out into the roadway to take video of Boothe, which caused even more disruption, police said.
Video footage shows Booth sitting on the post then straddling the pole and shimmying off, before he jumps onto the ledge of a building at 960 Collins Ave. Police said he then jumped onto the sidewalk where police began their chase. He ran westbound on 10th Street, but they lost sight of him when he ducked into the area of the Hotel Taft at 1040 Washington Ave. and exit out onto its patio area.
Police caught up with him a few feet away from the hotel and he was arrested.
Boothe faces charges of disorderly conduct and resisting an officer.