Police tactics in talking woman off ledge included not talking

The barefoot blonde teetered on a building ledge 60 feet above the street, fidgeting with the zipper on her pink pajamas as hecklers below taunted her to "jump."

From the narrow ledge outside her fourth-floor Belltown apartment, the woman scanned the crowd Friday morning as Seattle police officers perched at two windows consoled, cajoled and even ignored the woman in an attempt to coax her back inside the building. After several tense hours, Detective Kevin Grossman, a member of the department's Crisis Intervention Team, persuaded the distraught woman to climb back inside her window.

She was taken to the psychiatric ward at Harborview Medical Center because of her "diminished mental capacity," said police spokesman Jeff Kappel.

Sgt. L.J. Eddy, who oversees the Crisis Intervention Team, said Grossman handled the case exactly as he was trained to.

"You try to develop a rapport to demonstrate that you are not threatening," said Eddy, who assisted Grossman with the case. "It's a little harder to operate when people have things going on in their heads that we can't see or hear. I don't know what we're competing with; we could be competing with orders from God."

Whether it is a person teetering on a building ledge or swaying on the edge of the Aurora Bridge, chances are that one of the department's 16 crisis negotiators will respond. Their first job is to find out whether the person in question is suicidal.

"Often we ask them, 'Are you trying to kill yourself? Do you want to die?' " Eddy said. "Often the answer is no."

While Eddy concedes negotiators often respond to suicide calls, she said they have seen a recent increase in the number of people who climb to high places for no other reason than to step away from stresses in life.

"Sometimes you get people who are attention seekers. We have had some people who say, 'I'm just out there having a smoke,' " Eddy said.

Crisis negotiators are trained to recognize depression, suicidal tendencies and mental illness. The most important thing is to "demonstrate you are a safe person to talk to, you are open to listen," Eddy said.

Many people will ask negotiators to stay away or not touch them, and Eddy agrees with that request. She forbids negotiators from reaching out and latching on to people. She said she doesn't want people to fall because they were startled, nor does she want to have officers fall in an attempt to rescue someone.

Eddy said she and officers have used the Oct. 12, 2006, death of Seattle resident Nick Torrico in San Francisco as a teaching tool. Torrico fell four stories to his death after a San Francisco firefighter, fearing Torrico might be suicidal, climbed to a rooftop and apparently surprised the 26-year-old, who fell.

On Friday, Grossman spoke to the woman from her apartment window at the Josephinum apartments, near the corner of Second Avenue and Stewart Street, but never joined her on the ledge. Grossman passed the woman cigarettes and water, and talked to her even when her back was turned. Below, onlookers yelled for Grossman to "grab her" while others urged her to go back inside or to jump.

But after nearly two hours at the window, the detective disappeared inside, and the woman appeared to be looking for him.

Eddy said Grossman's disappearance on Friday was intentional. One negotiation ploy is to establish contact with the at-risk person and then seemingly cut off that contact. The aim is to get the person to seek out and want to join the person who was attempting to help.

Susie Winston, director of counseling at Sound Mental Health, didn't see the incident but said Grossman handled the case "in a way that is remarkable."

"They spent enough time with her to develop a rapport. To get her to come in," she said.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com