{"id":125505,"date":"2026-02-27T22:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T22:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/125505\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T22:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T22:26:08","slug":"man-briefly-held-by-police-at-gulf-tower-in-pittsburgh-day-after-he-appeared-to-scale-the-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/125505\/","title":{"rendered":"Man briefly held by police at Gulf Tower in Pittsburgh, day after he appeared to scale the building"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1625ca1d665f4a31147de7ac36ef86dd.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A man was taken into custody at the Gulf Tower, a day after he appeared to have climbed the building in Downtown Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Only Channel 11 was there Friday afternoon as police took the man into custody outside the tower. Not long afterward, officials confirmed that he and a woman believed to be involved were let go.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThey were cooperative and provided full statements to police at the Downtown Public Safety Center,\u201d a Pittsburgh Public Safety spokesperson says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">This happened a day after a video was posted on Instagram of a person standing at the tower\u2019s peak.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The owner of the Gulf Tower, Larry Walsh, tells Channel 11 that the man is a 26-year-old Instagram influencer who is known for climbing tall buildings. Thursday was apparently the second time he made his way to the top of the Gulf Tower.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Walsh says the man came back Friday because he forgot his coat on the roof and came to get it. An employee reportedly recognized the man and stalled him until police arrived and took him away in a cruiser.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">However, that man has been in touch with our newsroom and told us police have already let him go before he was ever booked into jail.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Our crews also saw a woman, believed to be an accomplice, taken away in handcuffs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Walsh says that, two years ago, the same man broke into the Gulf Tower and went to the roof, but police didn\u2019t catch him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">There are also videos on that Instagram account of what appears to be the man on the roof of the UPMC building and several Pittsburgh bridges. We showed these videos to people Downtown.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cIt\u2019s not going to stop him. They\u2019re going to keep doing it,\u201d avid climber Scott Dyer said. \u201cThey do it for the rush, the thrill, the adrenaline, like you mentioned.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThat\u2019s insane. You couldn\u2019t pay me to do that. Not at all,\u201d said Katelyn Pryor, who works Downtown.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Walsh says he intends to press charges, not because he wants to ruin the man\u2019s life, but because he doesn\u2019t want him to hurt himself or anyone else.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Pittsburgh police have not confirmed any charges at this point.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Check back for updates on this developing story.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Download the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/mobile-apps\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:FREE WPXI News app;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">FREE WPXI News app<\/a> for breaking news alerts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Follow Channel 11 News on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wpxi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Facebook;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WPXI\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Twitter;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Twitter<\/a>. | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/video\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Watch WPXI NOW;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Watch WPXI NOW<\/a><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man was taken into custody at the Gulf Tower, a day after he appeared to have climbed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[11353,4623,58720,58713,58719,73,75,74,745],"class_list":["post-125505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-channel-11","tag-downtown-pittsburgh","tag-downtown-public-safety-center","tag-gulf-tower","tag-larry-walsh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}