A Tennessee tourist may have crossed off one item on his summer bucket list, but the stunt could land him in hot water.
David Karnauch posted a selfie of himself on an outer beam of New York’s Brooklyn Bridge to Instagram Monday, using hashtags that included: #newyorkcity #nyc #again #gopro and #adventureaddiction.
"You could just get on a beam and it actually had handrails on the left and right side, and I just walked across the bridge and turned around to take a picture," he told NBC.
But New York City police aren’t impressed, especially as the city tightens up security ahead of Fourth of July celebrations. John Miller, the Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism, called Karnauch’s stunt “irresponsible and illegal.” They didn’t say if he would be arrested.
“The person most endangered was the individual whose goal seems to be bringing attention to himself. It was however, irresponsible and illegal,” said Miller. “Had the officers patrolling the bridge arrived while he was there, he would have been arrested, as others have been.”
There are barriers on the bridge higher up along the beams meant to deter people from scaling the structure, but Karnauch told WCBS 2 he was able to scrabble up.
"I didn’t have any clue that NYC is ramping up security. There was nobody there to stop me from climbing onto the bridge.”
Karnauch isn’t the first to scale the Brooklyn Bridge. In July 2014, a German artist was able to switch America flags hanging on the bridge with bleached out American flags. The next month, a Russian tourist attempted a selfie on a tower, but got arrested before he accomplished his feat.
Dangerous selfies are a growing trend among thrill seekers. In May, two daredevils climbed The Ping An Finance Centre in Shenzhen, China -- which is still under construction and set to become the second-tallest tower in the world. But there are a host of others --like these-- willing to risk their lives for a photograph of themselves.
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