Liberty Firefighters rescue man climbing 6-story hotel
Liberty Firefighters and Police came to the rescue of a man found climbing along the exterior of a six-floor building.
According to a police report, firefighters were called out Saturday evening when the fire alarm sounded at the Bayfront Hotel on Belmont Avenue.
When firefighters arrived, they found bystanders watching a man climbing along the upper ledges of the building from floor to floor.
At first the man refused to climb down the the fire department's ladder, instead moving over to another side of the hotel until he reached the lowest floor.
It was only then that the man got onto the ladder and reached the ground safely.
One in a police cruiser, an officer says the man said that before climbing onto a ledge, he had imagined that someone was trying to kick in his hotel door, so he lit a piece of paper to set off the fire alarm, hoping to evacuate the hotel.
The man, identified as 42-year-old Michael Terrell of Girard, also told the officer that he likes fire trucks.
Terrell was booked into the Trumbull County Jail on charges of arson and inducing panic. He pleaded not guilty to the charges during a hearing on Tuesday in Girard Municipal Court.
A pretrial hearing in the case is set for Wednesday.