The 20-hour police intervention leading up to Josh Levy’s suicide on the Monroe Street Bridge last Friday left our imaginations reeling.

We pictured all the ways that Levy might have been saved.

One Spokane resident posted this thought on the newspaper’s editorial board blog, “A Matter of Opinion”:

“I just do not understand how in all those hours there was not an opportunity to rush or grab this man. Did anyone even think to bring in one of those Bungee nets behind their backs and toss it over him?”

If only a giant, super-strong net had been able to prevent his fatal jump.

In the weeks ahead, the Police Department and the community must examine this high-profile case to see how it might have been handled differently and to answer the community’s questions about the police use of a Taser.

But it will also be important to step back from the edge of that bridge to take a wide-angle view. We must also imagine the type of broad safety net we’d like our community to be able to throw over people who suffer with serious mental illness.

Last weekend Levy’s father, Dave Breidenbach, told the newspaper that his son had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Breidenbach said he’d picked up his son at Western State Hospital and brought him to Spokane earlier in the week.

Our community investigation should examine why law enforcement must spend so much time handling the needs of people with mental illnesses and why the mental health system can’t do more to save lives like these.

When the doors of America’s mental institutions swung open, patients with mental disorders were released to live in “least restrictive environments.” But the dollars for their care never quite made it back to their communities.

Now it’s nearly impossible to receive public mental health care without qualifying for Medicaid. Related issues, such as solid follow-up treatment after hospitalization, safe and affordable housing, and job training and placement, often go unaddressed.

It’s tempting to dream of a super-resilient net, designed by the makers of the Bungee cord, to solve this problem.

Instead we should set our sights on wrapping people with mental illnesses in the best rescue of all: strong public policy.