Maison DesChamps, who calls himself the “Pro-Life Spider-Man” scales the nearly 500-foot Accenture Tower in downtown Chicago on Tuesday. DesChamps was raising money for anti-abortion non-profit Let Them Live. (Image courtesy of Accenture Tower office worker Michael Tomsa.)
A 24-year-old man who calls himself the “Pro-Life Spider-Man” was arrested in downtown Chicago on Tuesday after he climbed the 40-story, nearly 500-foot-tall Accenture Tower office building where the Consulate General of Israel is located.
The man, whose real name is Maison DesChamps, of Las Vegas, climbs tall buildings to raise money for anti-abortion causes. Chicago police arrested him on misdemeanor charges of reckless conduct and criminal trespass to land.
People noticed DesChamps climbing the building at around 10 a.m.
“I was just excited to see something cool. You look outside, you see the same buildings every day, so when somebody says there was a guy walking up a building, we were all pretty eager to get out here and see it,” office worker Brionna Belcher told local ABC affiliate WLS.
Not everyone was amused by the stunt.
“Go climb a mountain,” onlooker Timothy Moore told the Chicago Sun-Times. “How many resources were taken up? How many fire trucks and police cars did this take up? There’s other ways to protest,” he said.
DesChamps has said that the stunt was a fundraiser for a nonprofit organization called Let Them Live, whose stated mission is to provide money to women considering abortions for financial reasons, offering to pay for rent, utilities, and groceries “if they agree to cancel their abortion.”
this was not what I was expecting to see outside my office window this morning pic.twitter.com/LktfBx6Gy4
— J 💕⚔️ (2.0) (@jerjjg) October 10, 2023
The Chicago Sun-Times reported that DesChamps climbed the building without the help of ropes in just over an hour. Chicago police officers, waiting for him on the roof, took him into custody when he got to the top.
Read Related Also: Woman who plowed into 2 Make-a-Wish charity ride bicyclists in deadly head-on crash convicted of murder
Let Them Live founder Emily Berning told reporters that the climb was to raise money for a woman named Sierra who is 17 weeks pregnant and has an abortion scheduled for Saturday.
“She is on the verge of eviction, she’s got two kids,” she said.
Berning said she’s hoping the group would raise enough funds to put Sierra in a better financial situation so that she would change her mind about the abortion.
While the fact that the Israeli Consulate is housed in the building appears to be a coincidence, it is notable because of the heinous assault on hundreds of the country’s citizens by members of Hamas, designated as terrorist group by the U.S. and other countries, over the weekend.
The building is also home to offices and retail stores.
Currently in Chicago. Man free solo climbing up Accenture Tower😳 pic.twitter.com/htyQGzfRHJ
— Nathan (@nattylitebish) October 10, 2023
DesChamps livestreamed the climb on his Instagram page but the video was muted.
He has scaled eight buildings in the past, including the New York Times building in New York and the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, as well as Phoenix’s tallest building formerly known as Chase Tower the week of this year’s Super Bowl.
“Climbing has a history of not asking permission. We have, I guess, an outlaw tradition,” he told NPR last year. “So, we tend not to ask permission. We tend to just do what our heart tells us to do.”
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
