Officer defends his actions on Aurora Bridge

The Seattle police officer who tried to handcuff a man who plunged from the Aurora Bridge said Thursday he had no choice because the man was beginning to slip after clinging for more than two hours to the outside rail.

"I think he was falling — [within] a millisecond of falling off that bridge," Leonard Carver, 45, a member of the department's hostage-negotiation team, told The Seattle Times. "There is no doubt in my mind."

Carver called his attempt to handcuff the arm of Derik E. Loso on Nov. 3 a last-second, "emergency option" to try to save Loso's life.

Carver, a detective who works on the FBI's Puget Sound violent-crimes task force, said Loso was clearly slipping.

The Police Department has since opened an investigation into the circumstances of Loso's death, taking statements from Carver and other officers who were at the scene. The department has declined to release detailed information about the review, citing the pending investigation.

The results will be submitted to the King County Prosecutor's Office to determine if a citizen inquest jury should be empaneled to examine the death and decide if police contributed to it.

One of the issues is whether Loso's death should be classified an in-custody death. The King County Medical Examiner has classified the death a suicide.

County Executive Ron Sims would decide whether to hold an inquest, based on a recommendation from the prosecutor's office.

Carver said he has been left feeling like a "target," although no one in the department has told him he acted wrongly. "I'm shocked and discouraged at the whole thing," he said.

Carver, who joined the department in 1995, said in his many years working as a negotiator he had never confronted a situation like the one on the bridge.

Normally, Carver said, it is his personal policy to not rush a suicidal person because it is risky. Officers usually talk at length to the person.

Carver said there was agreement among a small group of officers during the incident — which began about 7 a.m. — about using handcuffs as a last resort. The final decision to do so was his own, he said.

The handcuffs, which were tethered to a Fire Department device, were left on the sidewalk early on so they would be available if needed, Carver said.

Loso, 48, was crouched with his hands on the railing and feet on a girder during the incident. He dropped from the bridge shortly before 9:30 a.m.

For the last half-hour, Carver said, Loso appeared to be not hanging on at all. Carver said from where he stood on the other side of the rail, he could see Loso's left hand, which had a glove on it, wedged between the bars without a grip.

Carver said he could see Loso's hand coming out of the glove, with no effort on Loso's part to prevent it.

Loso's hand was 1 inch from coming out of the glove, Carver said.

He said he believes the same thing was happening with Loso's right hand, although he couldn't see it clearly from where he stood.

"I think he was allowing himself to fall," Carver said. "I think he was giving up."

But Carver said he can't be sure if Loso was deliberately falling or lost his strength.

"That's what we'll never know," said Carver, who was wearing a harness when he reached for Loso with the handcuffs.

Carver said the handcuffs touched Loso's arm, but he didn't want to elaborate.

He said he never saw Loso's face during the incident because it was obscured by a hood on Loso's jacket.

Throughout the incident, Carver said, Loso "never spoke a word, not one word."

Steve Miletich: 206-464-3302 or smiletich@seattletimes.com