Two days after an anti-abortion activist was arrested on charges of trespassing and resisting arrest in San Francisco after climbing the city's tallest skyscraper, he performed a similar stunt in New York City.
Maison Des Champs, a 22-year-old Las Vegas resident, scaled The New York Times building early Thursday morning and unfurled two anti-abortion banners on its side.
The New York Police Department didn't respond to KCBS Radio's emailed questions on Friday night, including whether Des Champs had been arrested or if The New York Times planned to press charges. A spokesperson for the paper didn't say if the outlet planned to press charges.
"While we fully support an individual's right to express their point of view, this was an unlawful and dangerous act," Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha told KCBS Radio in an emailed statement on Friday night.
DesChamps, who posted video of the stunt on an Instagram page in which he calls himself the "Pro-Life Spider-Man," was arrested atop Salesforce Tower in San Francisco after climbing the building in a similar demonstration on Tuesday. He was cited and released on the same day, according to police.
Neither the San Francisco Police Department nor the San Francisco Sheriff's Office responded to KCBS Radio’s emailed request for comment asking why Des Champs wasn't booked into the San Francisco County Jail.
It’s unclear what, if any, additional legal repercussions he will face in San Francisco. San Francisco Superior Court case calendar searches for DesChamps' name turned up no results on Friday night, and the San Francisco District Attorney's Office didn't respond to KCBS Radio's emailed request for comment prior to publication asking if charges were forthcoming.
Last year, DesChamps performed a similar stunt to protest COVID-19 mask mandates in Nevada. The Clark County District Attorney's Office, however, opted in November not to press charges against Des Champs after he was arrested last August for trespassing not amounting to burglary and trespassing after climbing the 600-foot tall Aria hotel.
DesChamps told The Washington Post in an interview he had planned to climb Salesforce Tower before Monday’s leak of a U.S. Supreme Court draft majority opinion that would overturn two high court decisions that legalized abortion nationwide.
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