ShareThisFORT PIERCE, Fla. - A man spotted in north Fort Pierce around 1:30 a.m. with a "rather large sledgehammer" was arrested after police say he complained about paying bills and hit a concrete light pole.
The apparent case of the sledgehammer-wielding walker happened Monday when a police were alerted to "an unwelcome subject with a sledgehammer sitting."
An officer spied a man later identified as 32-year-old Antonio Eugene Hadden "with a rather large sledgehammer walking on the sidewalk hitting a concrete light pole."
Hadden said he didn't want to pay his bills and those of his family any longer.
"Hadden said he saw me driving down the street and that is when he struck the concrete city light pole with the sledgehammer," the arrest affidavit states.
Sledgehammers often are used in heavy demolition work, such as knocking down walls and busting rocks. It wasn't immediately clear if a sledgehammer is capable of toppling a concrete city light pole.
The sledgehammer Hadden is accused of wielding is not to be confused with a hugely popular Peter Gabriel song of the same name from the 1986 album "So."
The affidavit didn't state whether Hadden will have to pay for any damage to the light pole.
(Will Greenlee writes for Scripps Treasure Coast (Fla.) Newspapers, The Stuart News, Fort Pierce Tribune and Vero Beach Press Journal. E-mail will.greenlee(at)scripps.com.)
