Saturday, July 28, 2007

If a guy's gonna jump, why would he wait until eod Friday?

Did you get caught in downtown gridlock yesterday? Did you tune into 1080 to find out what was going on? Did you realize, after about the 5th time the traffic reporter referred to it as "police activity," that this had to be a suicide situation -- "Traffic was delayed during rush hour in downtown Dallas as a man threatened to jump from the top of a 14-story building. Authorities restricted access to the area between Pearl Street, Central Expressway, Harwood Street and San Jacinto Street in the late afternoon while they tried to talk the 40-year-old man down."

I don't understand this particular news reporting policy -- that unless a suicide attempt is thwarted, we can't be told about jumpers because it would only encourage copycats. Seems infantilizing. And for me, when I could clearly see all the police and ambulances but could find no explanation, it caused a bit of a panic. Bomb scare? Gas cylinders? Threats to a visiting politician? Yes, much better to let everyone guess than to tell us that it was one unarmed guy on a roof.

Something that can be reported with all certainty though is this: DART bus drivers are the biggest assholes in all the world.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

NYC has it right: got a jumper? Let the crowd handle it. Nothing like a chorus of “Jump, jump” to get things moving.

HighJive said...

I always heard that you should never fire people on Fridays, as it’s more difficult for the fired person to contact their personal support system, and makes suicide an easier option.

I wonder if the person in your case had been fired. Then again, no I don’t.

Irene Done said...

highjive actually makes me ashamed I had never thought about that possibility. After being cut off by 4 city buses though, I was ready to have those drivers fired -- even on a Friday.

James-H said...

Seriously. Fuck those bus drivers. They must have to pass some obliviousness test.