A pair of CNN producers were arrested Tuesday after allegedly trying and failing—repeatedly—to break into the still-under-construction 1 World Trade Center. The network has confirmed that Connor Boals, 26, and Yon Pomrenze, 35, were working on a story about the recent high-profile security lapses at the site, but says they had not been instructed to sneak into the building as part of that report.
The New York Times has a detailed account of all the ways police say that Boals and Pomrenze’s attempted to sneak onto the site, but these graphs probably sum up everything you know about the almost comically lackluster attempt (emphasis mine):
Last week, the police arrested a 16-year-old, Justin Casquejo, who had sneaked through a fence and climbed to the spire at 1 World Trade Center. On Monday, three men and their lookout turned themselves in to the police admitting they had parachuted from the tower last year. In both instances, the trespassing occurred in darkness.
The CNN employees, however, were trying to enter the property around 2 p.m., as the area teemed with construction workers, tourists and police officers. They carried a video camera on a tripod and a GoPro, a smaller camera often attached to the user, Mr. Pentangelo said.
For posterity’s sake: The first failed attempt allegedly involved the pair being stopped trying to go through a gate at Vesey and Washington Streets, where police say they then failed to talk their way past security by arguing what amounted to “if a 16-year-old could get on the site, we should also be able to get in too.” The next two attempts involved trying—and, again, failing—to climb a fence along Vesey Street.
During a fourth attempt, at an electronic gate at Vesey and Church Street, the Port Authority Police finally had enough and arrested the two men for trespassing, disorderly conduct, and obstruction of governmental administration—in the process providing the two men with a story to tell, just not one they probably will want to.
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