Officer: 'She must have heard'
When police arrived on the Ship Canal Bridge on Tuesday to try to talk a suicidal woman out of leaping, motorists already were peppering the air with taunts and insults.
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"It wasn't like a barrage of comments; it was periodically people yelling," said police spokesman Duane Fish. "But each time something like that happened, it interfered with our ability to effectively negotiate. Each time, it was like sending us back to square one."
Yesterday, as the woman recovered at Harborview Medical Center and worldwide media attention focused on the event, police negotiators said it's common for one or two insensitive passers-by to interrupt their delicate talks with suicidal people.
But police say the number of comments, as the event played out before thousands of commuters, changed the situation from routine to a crisis, and they finally had no choice but to close the entire freeway.
"The police had a very difficult task, and I'm sure this didn't help," Mayor Paul Schell said yesterday. "Human life is precious, and inconvenience for a driver doesn't justify this sort of conduct and is not at all reflective of the average Seattleite. They ought to be ashamed of themselves."
According to a log provided by the police department yesterday, a motorist called 911 at 6:20 a.m. to report that a woman was sitting on the west railing of the bridge, her car blocking the far right lane. Two minutes later, Officer Brian Thomas arrived. Coincidentally, he is one of about 200 patrol officers who have had special crisis-intervention training.
He tried to talk to her. But "she was very soft-spoken," Thomas said. And "when I was speaking with her initially, that traffic, the noise itself, was distracting."
In the first seven minutes Thomas was at the scene, at least three people hollered from the creeping southbound traffic. At 6:29 a.m., police closed southbound lanes and diverted traffic onto Northeast 45th Street.
Thomas said he wasn't paying much attention when motorists yelled. "I was more focused on her," he said. But she must have heard at least some of the comments, he said. "At times, she would look up, as if she heard something."
Sgt. Liz Eddy, the department's top hostage negotiator, and her team, were summoned at 7:04 a.m. But it took them about 50 minutes to arrive. At 7:38 a.m., the woman stopped talking. "When she got quiet, that was scary," Fish said. "They were doing the best they could to get her off of there, but they realized they needed the negotiators. They realized this was going to be something that wouldn't be finished soon." At 7:44 a.m., police decided to close the northbound lanes. The comments were just getting to be too much, they said.
But it took them until 8:01 a.m. to get the freeway closed and traffic diverted onto Roanoke Avenue. Cars kept rolling by, and the periodic shouts kept coming, police say. "Some truck driver stopped and yelled," Eddy said. "A Metro bus stopped like they were sightseeing."
The catcalls came again after 9 a.m., when police opened the two northbound lanes farthest from the negotiations to try to relieve the massive traffic jam.
It is a Class C felony, punishable by jail time, to aid a suicide attempt.
"But it's not clear if it would apply in this situation, where somebody is yelling as opposed to actively assisting," said Dan Donohoe, spokesman for the King County prosecutor. "We are saying this conduct was disgusting and reprehensible. But it's not clear a charge would apply."
Police suppose they could have arrested some of the hecklers for obstructing a police matter. But "I can't imagine officers were attempting to get license (plate) numbers," Fish said. "We had too much to deal with, with a woman on the rail. We weren't going to go chasing after misdemeanors."
Meanwhile, the negotiating team was trying to ignore the jeers. "After a while, I didn't even hear it," Eddy said.
"That happens on all of them," she added. "Someone yells, `jump.' Cops usually tell the person to shut up, or sometimes they are removed from the area."
Police won't say exactly what was said between the negotiators and the woman.
But, typically, "You're trying to come up with things that will not send them the wrong way," Eddy said. "You do a lot of active listening: `I understand you're going through a lot of pain. Tell me about it.' A lot of people just need to be listened to."
The woman never gave her name, Eddy said. Instead, officers behind the scenes ran her license plate and tracked down her family and boyfriend.
Officers also tried to get her to slowly move from the edge. "You measure success in inches," the sergeant said. Police say it would have been too dangerous to try to grab her.
Eddy ordered an exhausted Thomas to step back after he'd been trying to talk to the woman for three hours. At 9:40 a.m., Officer Donna Strangeland took over.
Negotiators never promise that a boyfriend will come back, for example, or that a relationship can be repaired, Eddy said. "We don't want to make fake promises."
However, a woman negotiating with a woman can say things like "No man is worth harming yourself over," Eddy said.
But at 10 a.m., the woman stood up and jumped.
At 10:05, police opened the northbound lanes. At 10:14 a.m., the State Patrol opened the southbound lanes.
Negotiators were left to sort out their failure.
"Everyone feels despondent when this happens," Eddy said. "But the decision rests entirely with the individual. It's still hard to take. Some go our way, some don't."
Yesterday, police officers reflected, Fish said.
"I think we did an excellent job with the circumstances we were given," he said. "It just would have been nice if we could have gotten her off that railing."
Seattle Times staff reporter Carol M. Ostrom contributed to this report.