In the end, the need for a smoke proved just too hard to resist.
A man who climbed up a crane in Buckhead and kept police at bay for six hours finally came down on his own after running out of cigarettes early Tuesday morning.
"We obliged him by sending someone to get some more and eventually it seems he wanted another cigarette and he came down for it," said a visibly tired Atlanta police Maj. C.W. Moss at 3:45 a.m. Tuesday.
Police do not know what prompted Trent Eugene Robinson, 26, to climb halfway up the crane's height -- 115 feet from the ground -- about 9 p.m. Monday night.
"He seemed somewhat delusional and seems to have a history of some type," Moss said. "He did not offer a rational explanation as to why he was up there."
The scene seemed like deja vu to Atlanta police, who captured murder suspect Carl Edward Roland shortly after midnight Saturday after he spent 56 hours atop a 350-foot-tall crane less than two miles from the site of Monday night's standoff on Peachtree Road.
Unlike Roland, who refused food and water for more than two days while perched atop a 350-foot-tall crane, Robinson -- whose last known address is in South Carolina -- asked negotiators for food in addition to the cigarettes, police said.
"He did express an interest in having something to eat," Moss said. "Between the cigarettes, the coffee and the doughnut, it seemed to do the trick."
Authorities did not close off the busy area, home to several high-end hotels and close to Lenox Square Mall, as they did in the crane incident last week.
