Hero cops save man from committing suicide

[pokerfan]

Give 'em a medal!

Cops take 'suicidal' window ledge smoker to psych ward

By KATHIANNE BONIELLO, NY Post
1:00 PM, December 19, 2010

A lawyer enjoying a puff on the sill of his second-floor apartment window says he was wrestled to the floor by cops who hauled him off to the loony bin.

Mark Moody said he was taking his usual nicotine break on the window ledge of his Peck Slip home on a hot August day with a cigarette in one hand and a cellphone in the other, a scant 12 feet off the ground.



He was shocked when a police car rolled up and two cops jumped out.

"Are you about to commit suicide?" one cop asked.

"If I was going to commit suicide, this would be a pretty dumb place to do it," the 40-year-old trial lawyer scoffed. "If I jumped from here, I'd just sprain my ankle."

But the officers, who never said what prompted their concern, insisted Moody come downstairs.

Moody refused, explaining he was sitting on the sill so he wouldn't get smoke in the apartment. He even waved over a cabby he knew from the neighborhood, hoping the hack would confirm that the window is Moody's regular smoking spot.

But three ambulances and four other patrol cars pulled up before the cabby could move.

"An army of people arrived," Moody said.

Before he knew it, a beefy officer was inside his apartment, lifting him out of his own living-room window from behind, Moody said. The cop slammed him on the living-room floor while another kneeled on top of him and cuffed him, he claimed.

"I still don't know how they broke in," he said. "I never used to keep the chain on, but now I do."

The attorney was thrown into an ambulance and taken to Beth Israel Medical Center.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/pane_in_the_butt_vuYLCQZ7Vo5RVC7pyzNYMJ

[originalpckelly]

1. Well, OK then.

"Don't jump man, it's not worth it!"

[Journeyman]

2. He WAS committing suicide. . .

"Cigarette smoking is the only reasonably certain, social acceptable form of suicide I know." ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Of course, it kind of puts a damper on Dirty Harry's approach to helping jumpers, but I'm sure the script writers will be able to find a work-around for that.


The story leaves me with a sickly feeling of despair for the fellow for whom the original call went out, the guy the police were supposed to help, and what may have happened to him.

[The Straight Story]

8. Try this:

I will go into a garage, close the doors, and chain smoke for two hours.

Then have someone else go into a garage, close the doors, and run their car for two hours.

Which one is going to kill someone faster?

[Journeyman]

9. Your way is not socially acceptable. . .

there's the rub. . .

[Odin2005]

3. He's a lawyer? Those cops are in DEEP shit now!

[Nay]

7. Indeed they are! This man may be able to retire on the $ from his

lawsuit and spend the whole day on his windowsill if he wants!

Now, WTF are police doing? You can't sit in your own windowsill? And when he explained why he was there and why, the only reason the cops acted as they did was to be total controlling assholes.

[obxhead]

4. 400K lawsuit.

We need someone to protect us from our protectors it seems.

[Uncle Joe]

5. Well on the plus side, they didn't taze him.

Thanks for the thread, pokerfan.

[pokerfan]

6. Nor did they shoot him

which would have certainly kept him from committing suicide. The police showed incredible restraint. :sarcasm:

[Obamanaut]

10. Additional responses here ->

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x39398