A 22-year-old student, Maison Des Champs, was arrested on Tuesday after scaling one of California's tallest buildings, the 1,070-foot Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, in a protest against abortion.
Des Champs, who describes himself as a "Pro-Life Spiderman" and avid rock climber, faced condemnation from authorities for his daredevil free climb up the 61-story building.
Des Champs, a finance major at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, was born and raised in Hartland, Michigan. He "instantly fell in love" with climbing when he moved to California at the age of 16, he said on his website.
During his climb, Des Champs stopped to record a video that he later posted on his Instagram page. In the video caption, he was critical of abortion and a doctor from Washington D.C. and explained his reasoning for scaling the building.
Des Champs spoke to local TV station ABC7 after the climb and said that he had been planning the exploit for a month, using Google Maps to assess the building.
His protest came the same day that Politico published a leaked draft majority opinion indicating that the Supreme Court is readying to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that has guaranteed abortion rights in the United States for half a century.
Speaking to ABC7, Des Champs said he enjoyed his climb. "It was fun, I'd do it again, he told the station's Stephanie Sierra.
"I cut my feet which means bringing your feet off the wall and I hung one off one hand to show off a little bit ya know?
"I wanted to post some videos so they would get out while I was in jail."
He spoke out against abortion, alleging that doctors are killing babies.
"We're not trying to yell at women who want to have an abortion, we don't want to blame them... we just want to let them know there are other options," he said.
Footage shown on ABC7 shows astonished office workers rushing to the windows to see Des Champs climbing the tower. When Des Champs reached the top, police officers were waiting to lead him away in handcuffs. Police closed off a major city street during his climb for safety reasons.
Des Champs faces two misdemeanor counts—one of trespassing and another for resisting a police investigation, for not following police orders to come down, according to ABC7, which said he was cited and released on Tuesday afternoon.
It is not the first time Des Champs has scaled a tall building. In August 2021, he climbed the 600-foot Aria Hotel in Las Vegas to protest Nevada's COVID-19 mandates.
Newsweek contacted the San Francisco Police Department and Des Champs for comment.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Gerrard Kaonga is a Newsweek U.S. News Reporter and is based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on U.S. ... Read more
