Chicago man dangles off of Trump Tower, ‘demands to speak to president’
The unidentified man was loaded into an ambulance Monday morning after a 13-hour standoff.
Traffic was blocked off on Sunday after a man dangled from a rope on the side of the Chicago Trump Tower demanding to speak to President Donald Trump.
The 20-something Asian man streamed himself on Facebook Live, where he declared that he was a member of Black Lives Matter and demanded to speak to the president or he would cut the rope.
The man was loaded into an ambulance Monday morning after a 13-hour standoff with Chicago police.
“I have a knife. If someone will try to pull [the rope], I will cut it, and I will probably die. But I don’t want to die,” the man said, holding a knife in hand, on a livestream video.
The man has not been identified.
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He demanded to speak to Trump, saying, “If Mr. Trump, he promise something, he should do before the election.”
He didn’t make it clear what he wanted from the president.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported that onlookers wondered if the scene was part of an action stunt for the upcoming Batman movie being filmed in the city.
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Tom Ahern, the deputy director of News Affairs and Communication for the Chicago Police Department, tweeted during the standoff and provided an update shortly before 8 a.m. EST, declaring the “situation resolved peacefully by Negotiators. Suspect in custody. No injuries.”
Hostage negotiators spent hours on the tower’s observation deck trying to get the man down.
Trump Tower Chicago is 98 floors high; the man was hanging from the 16th floor. The tower was built in 2009 and is one of the tallest residential buildings in the world.
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It remains unclear how he got on the side of the tower or why he demanded to speak to the president.
The White House has not issued a statement regarding the incident.
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