May 27, 2005, was the third day that Carl Edward Roland, 41, wanted by police in connection with the murder of his ex-girlfriend Jennifer Gonzalez, spent perched on a crane 18 stories above Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood.
Police in Pinellas County, Florida, discovered the badly beaten body of Gonzalez, 36, in a retention pond on May 24. She had been last seen with Roland, for whom police issued an arrest warrant after he did not return to his Clearwater, Florida, home. The next day, Roland showed up at an Atlanta construction site, where he told a worker he had “hurt someone” before taking the crane’s elevator up 18 stories and crawling out onto its horizontal arm.
For the next day three days, area business and traffic was disrupted while authorities attempted to convince Roland to come down. To keep him from falling asleep and off the crane, authorities positioned a bucket underneath him with a loud siren, which Roland eventually disassembled. Finally, after ignoring the authorities’ offers of food and water for more than 56 hours, Roland agreed to accept some water at about 12:30 a.m. on May 28. He edged toward police, who then tasered, tackled and restrained him. He was then wrapped onto a stretcher and lowered down the 350-foot crane. After a visit to a nearby hospital, Roland was taken to the Fulton County Jail to await extradition to Florida. He was later found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
