A 33-year-old man was arrested in New York City on Monday after he jumped into a reflecting pool at the 9/11 Memorial, the New York Post reported. The incident happened around 1:30 p.m. when a Port Authority cop spotted the man leaping into one of the two-tiered reflecting pools at the memorial.
In a video of the incident that has gone viral, the man was seen lying in the 18-inch deep water in the pool's central basin after walking slowly towards it. He then slowly moved closer to the center and slid head-first into the pool. The man injured his leg and back in the incident and was taken to the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.
Here's the video:
💡🇺🇲 An Inadequate Jumped into the 9/11 Memorial Pool in #NewYork
— __kaput__ (@__kaput__) October 11, 2023
A not entirely balanced 33-year-old #Manhattan resident decided to cool off and swim in the pool, which was built on the site of the #WorldTradeCenter towers destroyed in 2001.
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The water was turned off immediately after the incident, and chains were erected around the pool to deter anyone else from jumping in.
"We saw the firefighters and emergency personnel come down the escalator as we were into the memorial. They said everything's fine, but they were coming in and going to a, like, back room, and we figured that down there was where they could access," tourist Lisa Bellow told CBS News.
The man identified as Jeffrey Hernandez was arrested and charged with criminal mischief and trespassing after the terrifying jump, a New York Police Department (NYPD) spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the Port Authority described him as an "apparently emotionally disturbed person,'' as per NBC News. He will also be getting a mental evaluation and criminal charges might include trespassing. The motivation behind the man's actions is still unknown at this time.
Notably, the pool is one of two at the memorial, both in the footprints of the Twin Towers that fell during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. According to the 9/11 Memorial & Museum website, each pool descends 30 feet into a basin and drops 20 more feet into a "central void."
The Memorial was completed and opened on September 11, 2011, ten years after the attacks that destroyed the original towers.
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