Man taken into custody after scaling Santa Ana water tower and refusing to come down
A man was taken into custody Tuesday after he scaled the historic 153-foot Santa Ana water tower and refused to come down for several hours, officials said.
Police and fire crews responded about 11:45 a.m. to the tower in the 1500 block of Penn Way after someone reported seeing the man climb a fence surrounding the property, Santa Ana Police Department spokesman Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said.
When the man reached the 60-foot mark on the water tower, he stopped and tampered with several water valves, releasing a stream of water, Bertagna said.
After fiddling with the valves, the man, who was wearing a backpack and carrying a drone, continued to scramble up the tower until he reached the top, Bertagna said.
At some point, the man broke apart the drone and tossed pieces of it below, Orange County Fire Authority spokesman Capt. Larry Kurtz said.
“It doesn’t seem like he wants to come down,” Kurtz said at the time.
By 2:45 p.m., the man, whose identity has not been released, started climbing down the tower. He stopped several times as officers climbed a ladder to reach him.
About 10 minutes later, the man reached the ground and was taken into custody.
The water tower was built in 1928 and supplies 800,000 gallons of water to Santa Ana, the Orange County Register reported.
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