Brooklyn Bridge climber ties up traffic, gets taken to Brooklyn Methodist

April 7, 2022 Raanan Geberer

Car lanes on the Brooklyn Bridge. Two Brooklyn-bound lanes were closed around 7:30 a.m. on Thursday as police responded to a report of a bridge climber. AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, File

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In the latest in a long history of people trying to climb or jump off the Brooklyn Bridge and causing havoc, a man in his twenties climbed the bridge’s cables on Thursday morning and tied up traffic until Emergency Service Unit officers were able to bring him down, police said.

Two Brooklyn-bound lanes were closed around 7:30 a.m. as police rushed to the bridge, according to published reports. An NYPD spokesperson noted that the entire span of the bridge is within Brooklyn’s 84th Precinct, so the first cops who responded were from the 84th.

The man was finally talked down, and lanes reopened to car traffic around 8:30 a.m., police said. A tweet from NYPD Special Ops said he was “experiencing a mental crisis.”

When the man, who was still not identified as of press time, came down off the cables, he was put onto a stretcher and taken to New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital in Park Slope for an evaluation. As of Thursday afternoon, he still had not been charged, police told the Eagle.

Early this morning, personnel from #NYPD ESU saved the life of an individual experiencing a mental crisis. The individual sat dangerously on the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge, high above the East River. ESU successfully established a dialogue and safely talked the person down. pic.twitter.com/uLayfm87bp

— NYPD Special Ops (@NYPDSpecialops) April 7, 2022

Regardless, there have been multiple example of people climbing the bridge, some of them threatening to jump.

For example, in 2020, a man climbed to the top of the bridge and had to be talked down. In December 2019, a man started climbing the bridge, only to be talked down by a bystander who yelled at him, “You can change anything in your life! It’s not worth it! Turn around, bro!”

In 2015, a man was arrested after climbing the bridge to take a selfie. In 2014, at least two European tourists were arrested in separate incidents.

And in 1993, a woman from Washington State climbed to the top of the bridge and was talked down, soon after a naked man who was shouting about the beauty of nature ran onto the roadway and was struck by a car, according to police reports at the time.