Five days after activist Guido Reichstadter climbed a thin arch to the top of the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge, he descended Wednesday morning, ending his protest of the war with Iran and the proliferation of artificial intelligence.
He took about 10 minutes to trek down an internal ladder hidden within the arch. Officials waited for him in a fire truck basket stretched to reach a circular hole under the arch near the bridge’s sidewalk. Dozens more police officers, firefighters and emergency medicine personnel waited for him on and below the bridge. About 20 police vehicles were stationed nearby, halting and resuming traffic.
Reichstadter was handcuffed in the basket. When it reached the grass below, he was placed onto a stretcher and taken away in an ambulance. His food ran out Saturday morning, he told The Washington Post, and he had been without water since Sunday.
“I hope that this action has offered something to motivate and inspire you, and that it can serve as fuel for greater commitment and action in the cause of peace and in the fight for our future,” he said Tuesday evening in his final X post from atop the bridge.
Hi it’s Guido! I’m still here on the bridge. My water ran out Sunday & I’m heading down in the morning. I’ll probably be going to jail for a while when I get down. I’ll be handing off this account and hopefully we can stay in touch. I hope that this action has offered… pic.twitter.com/u8MccjyD03
— Guido Reichstadter (@wolflovesmelon) May 5, 2026
It’s the 45-year-old Floridian’s second time scaling the bridge that connects Washington across the Anacostia River. In 2022, he climbed an arch and remained there for 24 hours to protestthe Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe vs. Wade.
In 2024, he relocated to San Francisco, co-founded StopAI and embarked on a series of activist stunts designed to bring attention to the causes he championed. In September, he went on a 30-day hunger strike outside the San Francisco headquarters of AI company Anthropic. He’ll likely go on trial this month, he said, for locking the doors of the OpenAI offices shut with a steel chain.
Members of the feminist anti-war nonprofit Code Pink went to the bridge each day since his ascent Friday to show their support. Co-founder Medea Benjamin said she has “been in a state of despair” about the war.
“I’m always thinking, ‘What more can I do? How can I make my voice louder?’” she said through harsh wind and strong rain near the bridge shortly before Reichstadter left. “And then I heard what Guido was doing. I’m inspired by him. I think of him as a hero, and I know that we’ll form a movement to support him in any legal issues that he faces.”
A handful of supporters shouted as Reichstadter climbed down the interior ladder.
“We love you Guido!” they yelled. Their chants — “No war with Iran!” — became more personal as officials guided him out of the hatch. “Free, free Guido!”
There were some false exits — around 10:30 p.m. Sunday, Reichstadter said on X that he would soon leave the bridge. On Monday evening, he said he would leave the bridge Tuesday afternoon. He decided to descend, he said, because he could not go much longer without water.
D.C. police tried for days to convince Reichstadter to leave the bridge — since they first arrived on scene mid-ascent on Friday. By Tuesday, they used his earlier statements to persuade him.
“You’re a man of your word,” they shouted through a megaphone. “You told us you’d come down.”
Reichstadter suspects he will serve time in jail. He said via text Tuesday night that he will “keep doing my work in jail … through [dialogue] with my fellow inmates and through writing and phone calls outside.”
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