Police collar climber trying to scale Trump Tower for meet

Police on Wednesday captured a climber scaling Trump Tower, dragging him to safety through an open window on the 21st floor of the New York headquarters of the Republican nominee for US president.

Live television footage showed uniformed officers reaching out and grabbing the young man — dressed in grey shorts, an olive T-shirt and white cap — around three hours after he started his ascent using five suction cups.

“The climber has been taken into custody,” a police spokesman tweeted.

After he was hauled into the window onlookers gathered on the streets below the Fifth Avenue tower cheered.

Witnesses say the man started climbing Donald Trump’s namesake 58-story skyscraper at about 4 p.m. He was wearing a backpack and used suction cups, ropes and a harness to slowly climb the building from an outdoor terrace just a few floors up.

Police officers smashed windows and broke through a ventilation duct in an attempt to block his progress. Officers also lowered themselves toward him using a window washer’s platform.

For a long time, the climber played a slow-motion cat-and-mouse game with his would-be rescuers, keeping his distance by methodically working his way back and forth across the facade and angled corners of the building. When would-be rescuers smashed a window above him, he ducked to avoid big shards of glass that fell.

The chase ended dramatically just after 6:30 p.m.

As a crowd gasped on the street below, two officers leaning far out of a window frame where the glass was removed grabbed the climber’s arm and backpack, and in a flash yanked him from his dangling stirrups. He went through the opening head first, his legs pointed skyward.

Police had deployed large, inflated crash pads at the scene, but it was unclear whether they were positioned close enough to where the man was climbing to offer any protection if he fell.

Little was known about the climber. A video posted to YouTube on Tuesday by an account belonging to “Leven Thumps” purported to be the climber explaining to Trump that he had scaled the building to get the candidate’s attention.

The climber, seen wearing a dark hoodie to disguise himself in the video, calls himself an “independent researcher seeking a private audience with you to discuss an important matter.” He also identifies as a Trump supporter.

The tower is headquarters to the Republican presidential nominee’s campaign and his business empire. He also lives there.

Trump was not in the building.

A Trump campaign spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

“This man performed a ridiculous and dangerous stunt,” Michael Cohen, an executive at the Trump Organization, said in an emailed statement. “I’m 100 percent certain the NYPD had better things to do.”