A 44-year-old man climbed to the top of the Brooklyn Bridge's north tower on Sunday afternoon, allegedly stripped naked, and jumped into the East River, surviving the fall only to be fished out by police and hit with five criminal charges.

Galymzhan Abaildayev scaled the 143-year-old bridge carrying a backpack and two flags, NBC News reported. After reaching the top of the north tower, which stands 272 feet above the water, according to Parsons, a company involved in the bridge's restoration, he displayed the flags and allegedly took off his clothes. Then he jumped.

The NYPD harbor unit pulled Abaildayev from the East River and transported him to a city hospital, where he arrived in stable condition. By Monday, the NYPD had confirmed in a statement to NBC News that Abaildayev faces charges of reckless endangerment, graffiti, public lewdness, criminal trespass, and disorderly conduct.

Five charges and no attorney on record

The charge sheet tells its own story. Reckless endangerment covers the obvious danger of leaping from a structure nearly 30 stories above the water. Criminal trespass addresses the unauthorized climb itself. Public lewdness follows the alleged stripping. Disorderly conduct needs no explanation for anyone who pictures the scene on a busy Sunday afternoon on one of the most famous landmarks in the country.

Then there is the graffiti charge. NBC News did not report what Abaildayev allegedly marked or where, and the NYPD's statement did not elaborate. Whether the charge stems from something he left on the bridge's stonework or its cables remains an open question.

It is also unclear whether Abaildayev has retained an attorney. His motive for the stunt, if there was one beyond spectacle, has not been disclosed. The contents of the two flags he displayed have not been described in available reporting.

New York City's Department of Transportation lists the Brooklyn Bridge's clearance from the water at its center span at 135 feet. Abaildayev jumped from the north tower, which rises well above the roadway. A fall from that height into the East River is the kind of thing most people do not walk away from. That Abaildayev arrived at the hospital in stable condition is itself remarkable.

NYPD's harbor unit made the rescue, a job that keeps getting busier

The harbor unit's role in pulling Abaildayev from the river deserves more than a passing mention. These officers patrol some of the most dangerous waterways in the country, and a rescue beneath the Brooklyn Bridge on a summer afternoon is exactly the kind of call that demands speed and skill. The unit reached Abaildayev in the East River and got him to medical care while he was still conscious and stable.

It is not the first time the East River has made news in New York. Earlier this year, an unidentified man's body was pulled from the East River near a busy ferry landing during the morning commute, a grim reminder that not every water incident ends with a hospital visit and a charge sheet.

Law enforcement officers across the country routinely put themselves in harm's way to save people, sometimes the same people who created the danger in the first place. An ICE officer in Florida recently pulled a drowning six-year-old from a pool and administered CPR, a reminder that the men and women behind the badge do far more than enforce warrants.

New York's public disorder problem keeps showing up on camera

A man stripping naked on top of one of America's most iconic structures and then jumping into the river below is the kind of incident that, a generation ago, would have been genuinely shocking. In today's New York, it lands somewhere between alarming and predictable. The city's public spaces have become stages for increasingly brazen acts of disorder, and the charges Abaildayev faces, trespass, lewdness, disorderly conduct, read like a summary of the complaints ordinary New Yorkers raise every day about what their city has become.

Five charges sound serious on paper. Whether they carry real consequences is another matter entirely. New York's criminal justice system has spent years softening penalties for exactly the kinds of offenses on Abaildayev's charge sheet. Reckless endangerment can be charged as a misdemeanor. Disorderly conduct is a violation, not even a misdemeanor in most cases. Public lewdness is a misdemeanor. Criminal trespass can range from a violation to a felony depending on the degree, but bridge-climbing cases have not historically drawn heavy sentences.

The question is not whether Abaildayev broke the law. He clearly did, by the NYPD's own account. The question is whether the system treats these offenses as anything more than paperwork. Across the country, communities are watching how cities like New York handle public safety, and whether laws on the books actually mean anything when someone decides to turn a national landmark into a personal stage.

Incidents involving law enforcement and public order continue to draw scrutiny in the city. A New York City Council member recently filed a misconduct complaint against an NYPD officer following a Brooklyn arrest, part of a broader pattern in which the officers tasked with maintaining order face as much institutional resistance as the people breaking the rules.

Meanwhile, serious criminal charges against public officials elsewhere show that accountability is not dead everywhere. In Indiana, a police chief was recently arrested on felony charges after federal agents seized more than 100 guns from his home, a case where the system moved swiftly and decisively.

Abaildayev survived a jump that should have ended far worse. The NYPD officers who fished him out of the East River did their jobs. Now it falls to the courts to do theirs, and in New York, that is never a safe bet.