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Police have swarmed the Bolte Bridge after a man climbed one of its concrete pillars and spray-painted a giant Pam the Bird-style graffiti tag onto it.
In a video shared to an Instagram account’s story on Tuesday morning, the man appears to be on top of the bridge’s eastern concrete stack, looking down on several emergency vehicles and the road, of which one inbound lane is closed as authorities try to get him down.
“I’m not coming down until they lower the taxes,” he says, his voice raised and shaking. “I’m [expletive] sick of paying that [expletive].”
The man did not specify which taxes he was referring to.
Another video shows the man gleefully swinging his feet up and down while sitting on the pillar, soundtracked by Lesley Gore’s Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows.
Police said the intruder is refusing to come down, and said there was no threat to the public or road users.
The man accused of being behind the original Pam the Bird graffiti is awaiting trial on more than 200 charges that he vandalised property across Melbourne worth $700,000. Jack Gibson-Burrell has pleaded not guilty and is on bail with conditions including that he lives in Geelong with his grandmother, comply with a nightly curfew and not possess abseiling or graffiti-related items.
The mercury dropped to four degrees on Tuesday morning as fog came close to the top of the bridge’s 140-metre-high concrete pillars.
Police spokeswoman Katherine McLeod also told 3AW: “We do have significant amount of units responding to a trespasser who is at the very top of the Bolte Bridge. A bird has been graffitied on the bridge, and that person is not coming down. We’re doing our best to get him down.”
The left lane of the Bolte Bridge inbound to Melbourne and the West Gate Freeway remains closed, with speed reduced to 40km/h, according to VicTraffic.
More to come.
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