Rejected Suitor Cuts Electricity to Many Homes : Power Poles Fall in Miami Chain Saw Massacre

A man, angered over his rejection by a woman in a singles bar, felled several utility poles with a chain saw and plunged about 2,000 homes into darkness, police said today.

Police say Jay Halaise, 27, of Miami was arrested on charges of aggravated assault and criminal mischief in the Tuesday night incident that left the city’s Coconut Grove area in the dark early today.

“He cut two or three telephone or electric poles,” said Ron Sable, a Miami police spokesman. “One of them apparently was just hanging there, just like in the cartoons. You know, you just put a little touch to it and it’d fall.”

At least one of the poles fell to the ground, downing a tangle of wires. Officer Angel Roman said one man approached the suspect as he cut a pole and asked what he was doing.

“The defendant raised the chain saw at the victim and started to chase him,” Roman said.

The man ran and hid. Then he called police.

“It looked like a remake of the ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre,’ ” said Bob Brown, who said he burned out the clutch on his motorcycle when he stopped abruptly to avoid a live wire that fell in front of him.

Kathleen Zargo, a patron of Big Daddy’s bar, said the man approached her Tuesday night and she rebuffed him. Zargo said the man then told her, “I’m going to get a chain saw and cut down all the trees.”