A grinning rappeller used suction cups to scale the side of Trump Tower Wednesday afternoon.
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Police officers eventually grabbed the man as he reached the 21st floor and pulled him inside the building.
Live television footage showed uniformed NY police officers reaching out and grabbing the young man with curly auburn hair – dressed in grey shorts, an olive T-shirt and white cap – some three hours after he started his ascent using five suction cups. Stephen Rogata, 19, of Great Falls, Virginia, has been charged with reckless endangerment and criminal trespass.
The tower is headquarters to Trump’s Republican presidential campaign and his business empire. Trump also lives there, although he was away Wednesday.
Rogata started scaling the tower about 3:40 p.m., nearly immediately summoning the NYPD and their emergency services unit, officials said. He climbed as high as the 21st floor of Trump Tower before ultimately being apprehended.
Police said during a press conference afterward that the man scaled the building in an effort to talk to Trump, who calls the building both home to his presidential campaign as well as his primary residence. “Believe me, if my objective was not significant, I would not risk my life pursuing it”, he says, addressing Trump.
Officers threw a blue towel out of a window at another point in an apparent attempt to coax him in.
According to The New York Post, the man posted a video to You Tube Tuesday saying he was a Trump supporter and wanted to meet with him. “I just don’t know how many people will watch this”. The terrace slanted up to the main tower structure, forcing the climber to take a diagonal pattern for the first few minutes of his climb, attracting the attention of onlookers.
“Hello, Mr. Trump, do excuse my manner of appearance”. As of this writing, Trump has yet to comment. “Be sure to get out and vote for Mr. Trump in the 2016 election”, says Steve (unconfirmed) in the video posted below.
For a long time, the climber played a slow-motion cat-and-mouse game with his would-be rescuers, keeping his distance by methodically working his way back and forth across the facade and angled corners of the building.
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Later Wednesday evening, Trump tweeted: “Great job today by the NYPD in protecting the people and saving the climber”. Detective Christopher Williams, standing at one of the windows opened by police, said when Rogata dismissed the warning he waited for the opportune moment to pull the teen into the building.
