Yesterday morning in Seattle. The time was about 6:20 a.m. A woman was in distress. She'd had some severe relationship problems, and was now threatening to jump off a bridge. Traffic had been stopped a few minutes earlier by police who had just arrived on the scene. People had their car windows rolled down, and were cheering at the woman.

Cheering her on. To jump.

"Jump bitch jump". "Hurry up and get it over with". The local radio station played splashing noises, encouraging the woman to jump for it.

The woman, when she first climbed up onto the bridge, wasn't sure if she wanted to jump. They say that if they don't jump in the first hour, they probably won't do it. She was up there for four hours. In the end, the taunting pushed her over the edge. She jumped. She now lies in critical condition in a Seattle hospital. The police believe that they could have convinced her not to do it. The jeering crowds were the fatal factor.

This story makes me sick to my stomach. Evidently, in about half of all bridge suicides, the crowd gets into the act. And never in a good way. How can people do this? Don't tell me it's crowd mentality. We're talking about somebody's life here. Are you going to kill somebody just to get to work 15 minutes sooner? That's basically what people do. If they didn't open their yappers, then the woman would not have jumped. That makes them an accessory to suicide, or something. I'm not sure what the law actually is. But apparently these people can be charged for aiding this person to die. I say, throw every last one of the fuckers in jail. I'm so appalled by this, it really goes beyond words.

There really is no excuse. The experts will say that it's because of the whole crowd thing. They'll say it's not an excuse, it's an explanation. Well, whoopee. If they're stupid enough, and brainless enough, to yell obscenities at this woman just because the guy in the next lane is doing it.....they should be taken out and shot. You encourage somebody to kill themselves just because somebody else is doing it too? Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds?

I like some people, I don't like some. Some people I really can't stand. But I would never encourage anybody to kill themselves. Not even those who I really hate. Let alone somebody I don't even know. I'm sort of at a loss. For once, words fail me.

Have a nice day.

okay.. i know it's a really bad cliche, and probably not appropriate given the situation...but as i was reading your article and you were talking about how "You encourage somebody to kill themselves just because somebody else is doing it too?" the phrase that came to my mind was "if everybody else jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?" everybody would tell you that they would not. anyways. you're right. i read the story about this too. sickening. takes "road rage" to a brand new extreme.

jones

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