Teen arrested atop Queensboro Bridge during social media stunt

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An NYPD officer scaled the Queensboro Bridge to reach a teeanger who climbed the bridge as part of a social media stunt Thursday. Image via Youtube

An NYPD officer scaled the Queensboro Bridge to reach a teeanger who climbed the bridge as part of a social media stunt Thursday. Image via Youtube

By David Brand

An 18-year-old social media stuntman was arrested Thursday atop the Queensboro Bridge after filming his ascent on a YouTube live stream.

Malik Sanchez, a resident of the East Village who goes by Smooth Sanchez IRL on social media, broadcast the climb to a few thousand followers, with some sending him money through Twitch as he sat above the Roosevelt Island Tramway and bragged about the endeavor.

“Content king,” he shouted as he filmed cops on the roadway below. 

Sanchez seemed to have big plans for an attention-grabbing rescue.

“When I get to the top, there’s no getting down. So a helicopter is definitely going to have to rescue me,” he told his audience.

That isn’t what happened.

About an hour and 20 minutes into the video, a pair of police officers from the NYPD Special Operations Unit climbed the bridge to take Sanchez down. Sanchez complied with the officers before ending the live stream. 

An NYPD spokesperson said Sanchez was in Manhattan central booking Friday morning and directed additional questions to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which has jurisdiction over the bridge.

Sanchez is charged with reckless endangerment and criminal trespass, as well as illegal possession of pepper spray. He was awaiting arraignment Friday afternoon, according to a spokesperson for Manhattan DA Cy Vance.

Several of the video’s 380 commenters declined to praise the thirsty content creator and instead examined a few quotidian elements of the scene.

“So many people in Queens are chomping at the bit to kick your ass now for making them wait in traffic so long,” wrote one of the commenters.

Another inspected the state of the East River span.

“His cam picked up rusting spots on the bridge,” the commenter wrote. “The City paid a fortune to have that bridge repainted, and now the paint is peeling and the bridge is rusting. The City better get cracking to repaint the bridge, or else the steel will continue to rust and affect the structural integrity of the bridge.”