The thief looked like a ninja, cloaked in black from head to toe. He acted the part, stringing ropes and rappelling along the side of a school building.

It’s an act Miami-Dade schools police said worked for about five months at schools in Hialeah, Miami Gardens, North Miami and North Miami Beach. The ninja-like thief, working with an accomplice, stole copper wire worth thousands of dollars from school roofs.

Until one night last week, when the ninja came crashing to earth.

Miami-Dade Schools Police Chief Charles J. Hurley said the suspect, Anthony Louis Pepitone, 21, remained hospitalized Sunday night from the injuries he suffered in his fall. He is charged with multiple counts of burglary, grand theft, possession of burglary tools and criminal mischief.

His suspected accomplice, Dustin N. Wallace, 18, was in a Broward County jail Sunday night on about a dozen charges unrelated to the copper thefts. Hurley said Wallace would be charged soon, as well.

The thefts started about five months ago, Hurley said. Schools police launched Operation Copper Stopper.

The evidence led them to Wallace and Pepitone, Hurley said. Police estimate they garnered about $50,000 from selling stolen copper, Hurley said.

“They made life a lot easier for us by the critical mistake of this guy’s lack of rappelling experience,” Hurley said.

On Dec. 9, video surveillance from Charles David Wyche Jr. Elementary School in Miami Gardens showed the thief, believed by police to be Pepitone, tying his rope to an object on the building as he tried to make his vertical journey.

He was alone. Wallace couldn’t join him because he was already in jail. Pepitone went anyway, Hurley said, because he wanted money for his child-support payments.

The next thing the video shows is a black blur crashing to the ground.

The person tried to rise but stumbled and fell, a broken leg unable to support him. He nevertheless slithered away, belly to the ground.

Somehow he got to Jackson Memorial Hospital. Police found him there, and arrested him.

“Shame on anybody who steals from kids,” Hurley said Sunday.