'Pro-life Spiderman' taken into custody after scaling former Chase tower in Phoenix
PHOENIX - A protester scaled the former Chase tower without any ropes or safety gear during Super Bowl week and law enforcement was waiting for him at the top to take him into custody.
23-year-old Maison DesChamps, who calls himself "Pro-Life Spiderman," climbed the 40-story building, which is one of the tallest in the city.
He began climbing just before 10 a.m. MST and finished before 11 a.m. on Feb. 7.
DesChamps was live-streaming the incident on his cell phone while climbing and said he was doing it to raise awareness and money for an anti-abortion charity.
And as you can see, he prepared for this – he had climbing shoes and chalk on his hands. And he was taking breaks on each section of the building before finally making it to the top.
Phoenix Police officers who were on top of the building took DesChamps into custody. He was booked into jail for trespassing and criminal nuisance charges.
Central Avenue between Monroe and Adams streets was shut down during the incident.
Man scales former Chase tower in downtown Phoenix
A man calling himself the "Pro-life Spiderman" has climbed the tallest building in downtown Phoenix ahead of a major weekend in the city. The climber, named Maison DesChamps, has previously free-soloed buildings across the country, including Detroit, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The crowds continued to grow all morning as people watched video of DesChamps as he streamed his climb from the downtown area:
"We know it's Super Bowl week, so we walked over, and I can't believe there's a man scaling a very tall building right now."
"We're on the 19th floor when we see him at first, and he was probably like 10 floors down. Now he's at the top."
"I don't know what he thinks he's doing, but it's happening right now, man."
Phoenix firefighters were at the scene and say this was a daredevil move that put DesChamps and others in danger.
"Extremely dangerous. There's multiple places all over the Valley where you can go over and climb in a controlled environment, this is an uncontrolled environment. This is not what you're supposed to do," said Captain Todd Keller.
This is not the first time DesChamps has done something like this – in 2022, he climbed the Salesforce building in San Francisco and the New York Times building.
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