David Karnauch, an engineering student from the University of Tennessee, posted a selfie on Instagram on Monday with the caption, ”#newyorkcity #nyc #again #vscocam #gopro #goprophotography #adventureaddiction.” The photo was taken on Sunday from on top of the Brooklyn Bridge, and NYPD officers didn’t even notice he was up there, even though he was carrying a selfie stick — the unofficial bat signal of tourists everywhere.
“I don’t recommend anybody else do it,” Karnauch told NBC 4 New York from Chattanooga, since he managed to make it home without getting arrested because no one noticed he was breaking the law. “It’s not a smart thing to do because I know they take security on the bridges seriously.”
The NYPD agreed — although it also insisted that the well-filtered crime was not a security breach. NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorisn John J. Miller sent a statement to several outlets that said, “The person most endangered was the individual whose goal seems to be bringing attention to himself … Had the officers patrolling the bridge arrived while he was there, he would have been arrested, as others have been. When he called the act ‘not a smart thing to do,’ he described it correctly.” Last year, the New York City Department of Transportation installed barriers that were supposed to stop people from climbing the bridge, which, judging from Karnauch’s photo, may have only been decorative.
According to Karnauch’s Instagram feed, this is not the first time his selfie stick has successfully taken flight or evaded capture.
