New York police, onlookers scramble as man scales Trump Tower

A man was scaling Trump Tower in New York on Wednesday using suction cups and prompting a police response outside the Manhattan headquarters of the Republican nominee for president.

“We are sending our units there to try to find out what’s going on,” a New York police spokesman told AFP.

Television footage showed the shaggy-haired man dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, apparently using suction cups to mount his ascent.

A video clip and pictures posted on Twitter showed him climbing up the outside face of the tower as uniformed officers looked on.

He was about halfway up the tower by 5:50 p.m.

WATCH LIVE: Man scaling the side of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in NYC. https://t.co/E4L9Ak8zI4 pic.twitter.com/3Uvx7IwNPb

— ABC News (@ABC) August 10, 2016

Police said they had no immediate information about the person’s identity or his motive for scaling the glass skyscraper. They were alerted by the incident at around 3:40 p.m. New York time, the spokesman said.

New York billionaire and real estate developer Donald Trump lives in a marble triplex at the top of the 58-story building, which is also the headquarters of his Trump Organization and election campaign.

The Republican nominee was outside the city on Wednesday, holding a rally in Virginia with another event planned later in Florida.

He unleashed a firestorm on Tuesday when he suggested that “Second Amendment people” — those who support gun rights — could take action to stop Hillary Clinton from appointing US Supreme Court justices as president.

Since he launched his controversial, media-saturated bid for the White House, the tower on New York’s prestigious Fifth Avenue has become a magnet for tourists.

Members of the public are free to roam inside its public atrium until 10 p.m. most days as part of an agreement that allowed Trump to build 20 stories higher.