Activist arrested after tower climb
A man who scaled the 60-story Salesforce Tower in San Francisco was arrested Tuesday morning, according to the San Francisco Police Department.
Officers were flagged down on the 400 block of Mission at 9:21 a.m. and spotted the man on the side of the building attempting an ascent under his own power. The streets were sealed off as officers attempted to make contact with the man in order to remove him safely from the building. Medics were summoned to the scene.
San Francisco Fire Department personnel were also on the scene and tweeted out a warning shortly after 10 a.m. for people to avoid the office tower at 415 Mission St. In an image posted by the Fire Department, a figure could be seen on the tower framework, approximately two-thirds of the way up the building.
According to a message posted to social media, the climber appeared to be someone who identified as “ProLife Spiderman” who claimed to climb skyscrapers in an effort to generate attention for antiabortion causes.
It was not immediately clear if Tuesday’s climb was at all related to the recently leaked draft of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that would overturn the nation’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion.
A video shot from someone inside the building and posted to Twitter showed the man working without ropes or any other safety precaution working his way up the exterior framework between the windows of the tower.
Shortly before 11 a.m., the climber reached the top, 1,017 feet up, where he was greeted by police and taken into custody, according to police Public Information Officer Robert Rueca.
The climber was identified as Maison Des Champs, 22, of Las Vegas.
He was booked for trespassing and resisting arrest and was later released.
Vehicle and pedestrian traffic in the vicinity was restored shortly after Des Champs was arrested.