As the New York Daily News reports, a New York graffiti artist was caught in a twelve-hour police standoff after attempting to spray paint a Super Mario Bros. question block onto a water tower. The artist was first seen painting onto the tower at 1:oo in the morning, but the police on the case couldn’t find him until they called in a helicopter to search with floodlights. In response, the graffiti artist hid inside of the tower, starting a standstill lasting until 1:30 pm that afternoon. During this time, police reportedly cordoned off city streets, calling in dozens of officers to fence in the lone graffiti artist.
If that’s not enough, after the suspect refused to leave the tower the police “became concerned for his safety and utilized a drone in an attempt to make contact with him.” The sheer amount of police response to a seemingly harmless Super Mario Bros. homage has drawn plenty of criticism online, which has only gotten worse after police on the scene refused to answer any questions.
After over twelve hours of waiting, the suspect finally came down off of the water tower, where he was immediately taken into police custody. From there, he was taken to a hospital. Police have not released the man’s name out of respect for his privacy, and all charges against him are still pending (at the time of writing).