CNN Producers Arrested for Trying to Sneak Into World Trade Center While Reporting on How Easy It Is to Sneak Into World Trade Center

Two CNN producers were arrested on trespassing charges at the World Trade Center site Tuesday while apparently trying to report on how easy it is to get past security, authorities said.

CNN producers Connor Fieldman Boals, left, and Yonatan Pomrenze were arrested at the World Trade Center site. (Image source: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey)

A spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey told the New York Times that Yonatan Pomrenze, 35, and Connor Fieldman Boals, 26, were seen repeatedly trying to access the area.

Last week, a New Jersey teenager sneaked to the top of 1 World Trade Center, and on Monday, a group of thrill-seekers turned themselves in after parachuting off the building last year. Both of those incidents occurred at night; Pomrenze and Boals were arrested in the middle of the afternoon.

The New York Post reported:

[Pomrenze and Boals] initially tried to get through a gate at Vesey and Washington streets, with a source saying they told the cop who stopped them that “if a 16-year-old could get on the site, they should be able to get in.”

Next, they headed east, with Boals twice being spotted trying to climb a fence and getting stopped by cops, a source said.

They finally tried to push their way through a gate at Vesey and Church streets, where they were arrested.

Sources said the men were trying to test security at the site.

“They were trying to prove a point. I guess they thought anybody could get in,” one source said.

Pomrenze and Boals were arrested on charges of trespassing, disorderly conduct and obstruction of governmental administration, the Times reported, and were carrying a video camera, tripod and GoPro camera. They were both still in custody Tuesday evening.

A CNN representative said the two men were not instructed to sneak into the site but were there to do a “story about the recent incidents at the W.T.C. and other sites — the notion that daredevils are being drawn to them.”

(H/T: Gawker)