Maison DesChamps, who is famously known as Pro-life Spiderman, on social media has been arrested after climbing the outer south side of the former Chase Tower in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. The anti-abortion protestor said that he was doing the stunt to raise money.
Minutes after receiving reports of a man attempting to climb the tower around 9:45 a.m. on Tuesday, rescue crews rushed to the spot. Technical rescue teams were positioned both on the roof and around the ground floor of the building.
The video of DesChamps climbing the tower went viral on the internet. The climb, which took him roughly an hour saw him climbing a three-foot-wide external ventilation shaft as he made his way to the top. The police were waiting for him at the top and he was immediately taken into custody.
Here’s the Chase tower climber getting to the top in downtown Phoenix. You can see crews ready to take him into custody @12News pic.twitter.com/4q9rHgXZhA
— Erica Stapleton (@EricaReportsAll) February 7, 2023
Phoenix Fire Department Captain Todd Keller strongly condemned the stunt. “This is not the place or the time to do this,” Keller said. “This is extremely dangerous.”
Who is Maison DesChamps?
Des Champs is a University of Nevada at Las Vegas finance major, who grew up in Hartland, Michigan. When he went to California at the age of 16, he said on his website that he “instantly fell in love” with climbing.
DesChamps, who is 22 years old, live-streamed parts of the climb to his Instagram page. This is not the first time that DesChamps has illegally climbed a structure. He has made a name for himself doing similar stunts across the country. In Las Vegas, he was arrested while climbing the Aria Hotel to protest COVID restrictions – a move that was strongly condemned by many people at the time.
Furthermore, he was arrested in 2022 after scaling one of California’s tallest buildings, the 1,070-foot Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, in a protest against abortion.
