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The Seattle Police Department is searching for two men who climbed over the glass wall of the city’s iconic Space Needle on Friday, flipped over the edge and parachuted down from the 605-foot structure.

The jumpers face trespassing charges, according to a report provided by Public Affairs Officer Brian Pritchard.

The BASE jumpers purchased tickets and entered the Space Needle at about 8:50 p.m. Friday, according to the Seattle Police Department. The popular attraction has a round observation deck surrounded by high glass windows that are open to the sky above.

They were seen on camera at the top level of the Needle then went into a restroom, coming out with helmets on, according to police.

They ran to the glass window, climbed over to the other side, and jumped off, according to police.

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[-] giacomo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 64 points 2 weeks ago

i hate it when trespassers buy tickets.

[-] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 34 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Not a lawyer, but I'm guessing the trespassing applies when they opted to enter restricted areas of the facility, or maybe the air around it.

[-] EggInDisguise 23 points 2 weeks ago

"I had no way of knowing I wasn't permitted to climb over the glass, there was no sign and nobody told us not to" is a perfectly valid defence, IMO. Whether it "should be common sense" or not is irrelevant.

You can't claim someone has trespassed when all they did was just choose an alternate route back to ground level, much less an alternate route that did not say "don't take this route".

[-] doughless@lemmy.world 21 points 2 weeks ago

Courts frequently use the standard of whether a "reasonable person would have known" something. They might try to play dumb, but it almost definitely wouldn't work as a defense. Trespassing laws don't require signage, a clear structural barrier is enough.

[-] SillyDude@lemmy.zip 9 points 2 weeks ago

This is state by state. Where I live singage is explicitly required. Every 50ft.

Private property can trespass anyone at anytime for any reason though. That applies everywhere. Trying to get them for criminal trespass is a waste of time. What the police would like to know is exactly who they are and to trespass them from there, in just to get their records going.

[-] doughless@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago

Yes, laws do vary by state, but those signage laws typically apply to open land, not internal buildings/structures. A store doesn't need signage to prevent you from hopping over the counter to where the register is.

[-] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

But you do not need them on your house, even if you have your windows open.

[-] Theoriginalthon@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

As a reasonable person I think it was an awesome idea, and in fact think they should open this up to everyone that can base jump say every month or so.

[-] piskertariot@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago

They took the same route they would have, had the building not been there.

[-] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

I agree. Best they can do is say "don't so it again, you're not allowed here anymore". No signage or prior warnings means no charges.

[-] ccunning@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

My understanding is, you aren’t “trespassing” in publicly accessible areas, until you’ve been told to leave and refused^*^

^*^^Of^ ^course^ ^it^ ^varies^ ^from^ ^jurisdiction^ ^to^ ^jurisdiction,^ ^but^ ^generally^ ^in^ ^the^ ^U.S.^

[-] Drusas@fedia.io 1 points 2 weeks ago

The fuck is with all those carets?

[-] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Your client isn't rendering the markdown correctly, carets are how you make superscript (or smaller) text.

[-] Drusas@fedia.io 1 points 1 week ago

Ah. I'm just on mbin on Firefox.

[-] lol_idk@piefed.social 46 points 2 weeks ago

I can think of better things the police could be doing

[-] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 17 points 2 weeks ago

On that we agree.

I understand in concept why it's important to go after base jumpers, but there's almost certainly bigger fish to fry. Police are fucking lazy.

[-] loutr@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 weeks ago

They say they're searching but I bet they're not doing shit. Nobody got hurt and, as you say, they're fucking lazy.

[-] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago

It's Seattle cops, we should be grateful they're doing anything

[-] lol_idk@piefed.social 12 points 2 weeks ago

Well I think doing nothing is better than most of what they do. Just doing nothing night not hurt anyone

[-] postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Looks like a few other people implemented a better thing for them to do.

[-] ReverendIrreverence@piefed.social 39 points 2 weeks ago

Another unbalanced and inordinate waste of taxpayer dollars. Spending 10's of thousands of dollars to try and write 2 trespassing tickets is fucking stupid. They did it. They got away. They didn't hurt themselves or anyone else. Now go have some donuts and shut the fuck up piggies.

[-] Malyca@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 weeks ago

This is Seattle pd we're talking about

[-] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago
[-] DScratch@sh.itjust.works 15 points 2 weeks ago

Check for whoever played the Rivoli that night.

[-] fiendishplan@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

I came here for this reference glad I found it.

[-] Obi@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 weeks ago

Shame it's at the bottom. That movie was my number 1 last year, and that's as someone who never heard of them prior.

[-] _deleted_@aussie.zone 14 points 2 weeks ago

All they have to do is wait. They’ll come down eventually.

[-] sundray@lemmus.org 5 points 2 weeks ago

Now we wait for the jumpers' GoPro footage to be posted.

[-] lyrial@anarchist.nexus 5 points 2 weeks ago

Aren't parachutes a pretty conspicuous piece of equipment? I would have thought that staff would know to look for them. I might be ignorant here though.

[-] CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

There’s not that much security there so even if staff noticed depending on how things went there wouldn’t have been much time to seriously react to the “threat” but also, who cares? They didn’t hurt anyone

[-] discocactus@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie obviously.

[-] CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

But have we seen their show?? Did it work???

[-] LodeMike@lemmy.today 2 points 2 weeks ago

Oh no! Trespassing!

[-] CkrnkFrnchMn@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 weeks ago

Just Do It...

[-] fyzzlefry@retrolemmy.com 1 points 2 weeks ago

Don't they have anything better to do?

[-] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

They do now. There was a mass shooting there yesterday.

this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2026
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