French tourist who climbed Brooklyn Bridge speaks out after sentencing

NEW YORK (WABC) -- The man who climbed to the top of the Brooklyn Bridge was sentenced by a judge for the stunt.

Now, this French tourist is talking about why committed the major security breach.

Souid was convicted of reckless endangerment and trespassing, but he says he just wanted to get a good picture.

The 23-year-old tourist says when police arrested him he assumed he could still make his flight four hours later.

When he found out he'd be here for three weeks to face a judge, he realized what he did was serious.

"I have been making a mistake. I'm really sorry what I did. I didn't want to hurt anyone," said Yonathan Souid, the French tourist who climbed the Brooklyn Bridge.

Yonathan Souid says he simply wanted to take amazing photos of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan city skyline. He says he didn't think it was a big deal to jump a fence and climb the cables to get that perfect shot.

"When I'm trying to find inspiration, I go into a bubble," Souid said.

The 23-year-old French tourist faced up to a year behind bars for climbing the Brooklyn Bridge last month.

Tuesday he was sentenced to community service which includes cleaning jail cells to pay his debt to society.

Souid is the third person to climb the bridge this year, creating a security breach.

In late August, a 24-year-old Russian tourist was arrested for also climbing the cables.

One month earlier, two German artists scaled the towers under the cover of darkness and switched the American flag for a white flag.

So the city put up steel panels to keep people from pulling the same stunt.

Now, Souid wants to say that he's sorry; he understands he could have been hurt or could have hurt someone else.

"I love New York, and before visiting New York I loved New York, and that will never change," Souid said.

Souid will be here until February doing community service.

He says cleaning jail cells is obviously much better than being behind bars for climbing the bridge.

http://souid-photography.com/