When called out on Facebook, the video uploader changed the caption, claiming Chicago bridge stunt was to raise awareness.
At least six Chicago pedestrians are in trouble for filming themselves climbing on top of a raised Chicago pedestrian bridge while both sides were raised. First posted to Facebook by Chicago resident Mike Dobija (including tagged friends Mateo Nanaj and Curtis Sullivan,) his initial caption claims city workers started to raise the bridge while he and a group of his friends were still on it. But, according to a witness who saw them climbing up the bridge earlier this weekend on Saturday (Aug 15, 2020,) that simply wasn’t the truth.
Dobija’s original video has since been deleted from Facebook but here’s a copy below.
In the above video we can see six individuals enjoying themselves at the end of a bridge across the Chicago River. None of them seem distressed or upset that Chicago officials raised the bridge on them. As mentioned by a witness, they were also up there taking selfies.
According to Chicago resident and witness Ell Cobb,
“We arrived in the city at 4 PM and the bridges were all up in the air. These dumb f****** a**ho*** started climbing to the top of the bridge at 4 o’clock in the morning. Me and my friends were nervous wrecks watching them climb up there and take selfies….“
A friend captured the moment him and his bridge-climbing buddies slid down. What did Dobija do? New profile photo my dudes! Do their faces look they’ve been through a harrowing experience at the hand of inept city workers?
A video posted by Cobb shows their steep descent.
Dobija’s original caption read,
“Stupid f****** CITY WORKERS started raising the bridge while me and my friends were still walking across. Like how stupid can you get. We waited up there for over an hour just waiting for help.”
Hours after Dobija was called out for a blatant lie, he quickly spun his original comment to supposedly “raise awareness for a cause.”
“Black Lives Matter. ALL LIVES MATTER! Stop killing each other, stop f****** with the Police. Police treat people with respect. Let’s start over and get back to smiling again. We live in a beautiful city. Let’s just enjoy it together as one United city. We can all do better people.”
Again called out for a caption with conflicting messages and presumably receiving negative backlash, he took down the video.
It’s one thing to do something for internet clout, but to drag public city workers and then fake a message, incorrectly combining conflicting messages, is just plain wrong.
Local Chicago authorities are not aware of this video as of this writing.
