'Cool Hand Luke' copycat gets 14 years in prison for cutting heads off parking meters

Paul Newman was sentenced to two years in prison in Florida in the 1967 movie "Cool Hand Luke" for cutting the tops off parking meters.

Anthony Downs didn't get so lucky.

Downs was sentenced on Tuesday to 14 years in prison for taking the heads off 79 parking meters in downtown Fort Worth while he was on parole last spring.

Newman played Luke Jackson in the movie and he sawed the tops off parking meters after a night of drinking, then he refused to conform to prison life.

Police believe Downs was taking the meter heads for the coins.

For several weeks in early 2017, police discovered an estimated 79 heads of parking meters and sometimes their poles stolen from various locations downtown.

A special police detail ended the crime spree in March.

Officers saw Downs just north of the 1000 block of Burnett Street, staying in the shadows and running back and forth across the street.

Detectives and officers heard "banging noises," which police say was consistent with the way Downs was using metal water-meter covers to bang underneath meter heads to loosen them or cut them off.

Downs ran, but he was captured after a brief foot pursuit.

The Fort Worth man had previously been arrested for burglary of a building, stealing from a coin-operated machine and drug possession, police said.

Domingo Ramirez Jr.: 817-390-7763, @mingoramirezjr

This story was originally published February 14, 2018 at 4:13 PM with the headline "'Cool Hand Luke' copycat gets 14 years in prison for cutting heads off parking meters."