{"id":161606,"date":"2023-06-28T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-28T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mediaintel.asia\/?p=920541"},"modified":"2023-06-28T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-06-28T00:00:00","slug":"parents-of-toronto-rooftopper-warn-others-after-son-plunges-to-his-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/2023\/06\/28\/parents-of-toronto-rooftopper-warn-others-after-son-plunges-to-his-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Parents of Toronto \u2018rooftopper\u2019 warn others after son plunges to his death"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"MediaIntel.Asia\"<\/a><\/div>\n

The parents of a young man who plunged to his death from a downtown Toronto tower last month are coming forward to warn others about what they view as the dangerous pastime of \u201crooftopping,\u201d which they believe played a role in their son\u2019s death.
\nDorota and Dariusz Rybicki told CTV News they are hoping the death of their son Conrad will discourage groups of people who challenge building security measures to climb to the top of buildings and cranes because, they argue, a single mistake can be fatal.
\n\u201cWe would say, watch out, this isn\u2019t fun. This isn\u2019t entertainment that young people should be interested in. It\u2019s so dangerous,\u201d Dariusz Rybicki said in an interview from Poland.
\n\u201cYou cannot compare it with sports or having hobbies. This is so deadly. One small mistake can end your life,\u201d he said.
\nThe Toronto Police Service and Ontario\u2019s Office of the Chief Coroner confirmed that they are investigating the death of the 22-year-old Canadian citizen on May 23.
\nThere has been no finding of cause of death at this point, the coroner said, and police said they have not categorized the death as suspicious.
\nBut a trail of photos and videos that Rybicki has left online show repeated ventures to the tops of towers in Toronto. In one video posted last June to a TikTok account, Rybicki\u2019s feet dangle over the edge of a building, dozens of storeys up from Front Street in Toronto as his smartphone camera pans to the CN Tower and the Rogers Centre.
\nIn other photos his parents say were taken from social media sites that are no longer active, Rybicki poses on a girder with Toronto\u2019s Canada Life building behind him; in another, he poses at the corner of a building with the CN Tower in the background, and no railing between him and the street below.
\nIn another, he says that he has been addicted to rooftopping for six years. And he was not alone in this pursuit \u2014 other social media photos and videos describe people who are also drawn to the dangerous climbs for adrenaline, likes, and shares.
\nIn some tellings, 'rooftopping' went from a private pursuit to a phenomenon when, in 2011, a Toronto photographer posted a dizzying shot of legs hanging off a Toronto building. The photo was a viral hit and spawned copycats across the world, who branched out into videos that have received millions of views.
\nBut for some the risks have proved deadly: Chinese rooftopper Wu Yongning and Russian Andrey Retrovsky had large social media followings and fell to their deaths. In Chicago, 23-year-old Nick Wieme fell to his death from a hotel chimney.
\nIt's not clear if there have been any rooftopping-related deaths in Toronto before Rybicki's, as not every death may be made public. Toronto police warned of the dangers of rooftopping in 2016.
\nA Russian, Oleg Cricket, was arrested later that year after filming a video doing handstands on a rooftop in downtown Toronto and charged with break-and-enter and mischief; his cameraman was also charged with possession of break-in instruments.
\nRybicki's Tiktok following was modest and he had not posted a video in several months.
\nSome of his videos on Tiktok were marked with the warning that \"participating in this activity could result in you or others getting hurt,\" but others carried no such warning.
\nThe Rybickis also expressed concerns that buildings should be more secure to make it less likely that someone could climb to put themselves in danger. In correspondence with the family, the Hyatt Regency Toronto expressed its condolences but said proper equipment, security, controls and protocols are in place.
\nAcademic Ricky Crano of the University of California Irvine said the risky behaviour is supercharged by likes and clicks of social media, especially when the daredevils and the social media platforms can make money from the photos and videos.
\n\u201cThere are a lot of monetary incentives to take risks, to get more views, followers and more attention,\u201d he said. \u201cI think we need to have a serious conversation about the costs of our being entertained.\u201d
\nThe Rybickis plan to create a foundation called \u201cConrad\u2019s Peak\u201d to warn young people and their parents about the activities, and fight promotion of them.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s not a question of a nice picture of view or whatever. This cost our son\u2019s life,\u201d said Dorota Rybicki.
\n\u201cThis is how it ended for our son and we do not want it to end this way for other children of other parents,\u201d Dariusz Rybicki said.
\nPosts show the rooftopping also connected Conrad Rybicki with friends and a community in a city that was difficult to navigate for newcomers during the pandemic. Rybicki had returned to Canada from Poland about two years ago, his parents said.
\nOne friend posted a memorial to his Facebook Page, with a photo taken by Rybicki: \u201cRemembering those who died young. The memory of the photographer of this photo who taught me a few things and showed me a world I didn\u2019t know before. We will meet at the top Conrad.\u201d<\/p>\n

This data comes from MediaIntel.Asia's Media Intelligence and Media Monitoring Platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The parents of a young man who plunged to his death from a downtown Toronto tower last month are coming forward to warn others about what they view as the dangerous pastime of \u201crooftopping,\u201d which they believe played a role in their son\u2019s death.
\nDorot…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":253,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[639,692,325,194,222,1108,133,465,334],"tags":[10309,3009,3472,2274,1845,6002,10315,10328,7596,10310],"class_list":["post-161606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-california","category-canada","category-education","category-news-chinese-law","category-online-video","category-police","category-smartphone","category-social-media","category-university","tag-bytedance","tag-chicago","tag-chinese","tag-entertainment","tag-facebook","tag-hotel","tag-media-intelligence","tag-pandemic","tag-sports","tag-tiktok"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/253"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161606"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":161607,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161606\/revisions\/161607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}