A California teenager fell to his death trying to film a social media stunt on Los Angeles' new $500 million bridge: police

• A 17-year-old boy fell to his death while climbing the arches of an iconic bridge in Los Angeles.
• Police said he wanted to post a "social-media broadcast" when he slipped and fell.

A 17-year-old boy fell to his death on Saturday after attempting to film a social media stunt on the Los Angeles 6th Street bridge, the police said.

The teenager — who was not named — slipped while "climbing upon one of the arches in order to post, apparently, a social-media broadcast," Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said in a board meeting Tuesday.

"Tragically we see that location, while it has spawned a great deal of pride in Los Angeles, it has also, unfortunately, served as a backdrop now for tragedies such as this," Moore said.

Moore did not say which social media platform the teenager was using.

But the boy's father said the police had it wrong: his son wasn't trying to post something and didn't even have his phone on him.

"He didn't even care about social media," the boy's father told ABC7.

Police found the boy at around 2 a.m. on the 6th Street viaduct and he was pronounced dead at a hospital, per the Associated Press.

The $588 million bridge was opened in July and has been closed multiple times because of vandalism and street stunts. It's notoriously become the site of street takeovers and illegal drag races, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Some TikTokers have filmed themselves climbing the bridge's arches — which light up in red and blue and are its defining feature.

According to the Times' Tom Carroll, plans for the bridge initially featured guardrails and stairs on its arches. However, that design was eventually scrapped, Caroll reported.