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Naked Model Screaming About Trump Taunts Police Atop TKTS Booth: Witnesses

By  Chris Sommerfeldt Ben Fractenberg and Aidan Gardiner | June 30, 2016 9:10am | Updated on June 30, 2016 2:15pm

 A naked man screaming about Donald Trump injured himself after jumping from the TKTS both in Times Square Thursday morning, police said.
A naked man screaming about Donald Trump injured himself after jumping from the TKTS both in Times Square Thursday morning, police said.
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Courtesy of Jason Smith

TIMES SQUARE — A naked male model screaming about Donald Trump and taunting police atop the red TKTS staircase at Duffy Square jumped to the pavement as officers tried to apprehend him Thursday morning.

Krit McClean, a 21-year-old who's appeared on the covers of GQ and Harper's Bazaar, "neatly folded his clothes" and put them in a backpack near the square before climbing up over the uppermost railing of red staircase near Broadway and West 47th Street and started dancing about 8 a.m., according to witnesses and an NYPD spokesman. 

Police said they believed the McClean, who was born in Thailand and raised in New York, may have been suicidal.


(DNAinfo/Hal Danziger)

"He said, 'No, no, no, no Trump' and he kept screaming," said smoothie vendor Mohammed Adam, 34.

"He kept talking about Trump and kept saying, 'I'm jumping. I'm jumping.' There were a lot of cops up there," Adam added.

McClean, who's represented by Ford Models, was fake punching at police, spitting at them and doing a breakdancing move, "The Worm."

NYPD officers with the department's Emergency Services Unit gave McClean wide berth during his rant and placed an inflatable cushion about 20 feet below him.

Officers on the ground moved the crash cushion as McClean pranced back and forth. At about 9 a.m. McClean leapt from his glass perch to the sidewalk, missing the cushion by mere feet.

"After he jumped, he kept screaming. I think he was hurt. I saw some blood," Adam said.

About 20 emergency responders surrounded McClean on the sidewalk and wrapped him in a white sheet as he screamed at them.

McClean was treated at Bellevue Hospital for minor injuries to his legs and a cut to one arm sustained in the fall to the ground, an NYPD spokeswoman said.

The Wall Street Journal told NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce that McClean would be charged with indecent exposure, but a spokesman with the department's Deputy Commissioner for Public Information would not confirm the report.

"It's Times Square. It's crazy. I don't like it. I don't feel bad for the guy. I feel bad for the cops. He spit [at] a cop in the face," Adam said.

McClean's representative at Ford Models did not immediately return a request for comment.

McClean moved to New York from Bangkok to attend both Stuyvesant High School and Columbia University, according to his website.

McClean's neighbors said they hadn't noticed any signs of instability recently.

"He was always very energetic. Upbeat. I feel bad for him. He's a very smart guy," said one neighbor on Roosevelt Island, who's known McClean for years, but declined to give his own name.

McClean has a burgeoning modeling career and a personal blog where he publishes his thought and photos.

"Every so often, I take a minute right in the middle of a situation, and ask myself, 'Is this how you want to be living, and if so, are you happy?'" he wrote in a May 2015 blog post about visiting a Vietnamese island.

Naked in Times Square

(DNAinfo/Chris Sommerfeldt)