Tenn. man who climbed Brooklyn Bridge, took selfie is arrested

WRCB-TV reports (http://bit.ly/1HTFHq2) that 21-year-old David Karnauch of Chattanooga was arrested Sunday by the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office on a warrant from the New York Police Department.

Karnauch, at present in Chattanooga jail in Tennessee, will seem in courtroom on August 31. Karnauch is being held without bond in Chattanooga.

Karnauch snapped a selfie in early July of himself atop the Brooklyn Bridge that made national headlines as authorities warned Americans to be vigilant and alert about possible terrorist activity prior to the Fourth of July. He was wanted on a charge of reckless endangerment in the second degree.

Selfie taking has quickly escalated from a fun way to document a moment without asking a stranger to take your picture, to a social challenge to document just how crazy, unusual or amazing a photo you can take. However, he hasn’t uploaded any additional photos of aerial selfie stunts (an apparent pastime of his) in the weeks since.

According to police, the thrill-seeking tourist had accessed the bridge from the pedestrian walkway.

In a statement, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counter-terrorism John Miller said Karnauch’s actions did not constitute a “security breach”, but were still ill-advised and forbidden.

He reiterated: “If he’d stayed there probably a couple more minutes to get that shot, the roving patrols on the bridge, which are there all the time, would have arrested him or summonsed him as they had had others who have done the same stupid thing”, he said.