Man killed after leap off bridge

A man who jumped from the Monroe Street Bridge after spending most of Thursday night and much of Friday perched on the edge of the railing remained nameless, with police declining to release his identity.

The man’s father, a Spokane resident who asked not to be identified, said his son died on impact after landing on rocks.

At a press conference about an hour after the man’s jump at 3:20 p.m., Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick said he had a history of mental illness and had made similar suicide attempts involving bridges, including the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

Because of his mental illness, she said, his name would not be immediately released.

Negotiators from the county and Spokane County Mental Health had been trying to get the man to surrender to authorities, Kirkpatrick said.

At one point, police negotiators thought they had reached a tentative agreement in which they would take him into custody, thus allowing him to save face after a 20-hour standoff that disrupted traffic and drew numerous onlookers.

The strategy called for the man to come off the railing onto the bridge, where officers would initiate one Taser application and then take him into custody.

But Kirkpatrick said only one probe of the Taser made contact with the man and he appeared unfazed by it, which allowed him to get back up on the railing and jump.

Officers who approached the man were both uniformed and plain-clothes.

The incident began about 7:20 p.m. Thursday when the man was spotted sitting on the south end of the bridge with his legs over the side. Police sought a plain-clothes officer to initiate contact with the man, who appeared agitated.

By late Thursday, police had offered him bottled water and got his name. About three hours into the situation, the man stood up, urinated and sat back down, an act he would repeat as Friday wore on.

“He was not engaging with the negotiators after 20 hours … he never exceeded more than one word (answers),” Kirkpatrick said.

Standing by were police and county mental health negotiators, firefighter-paramedics and the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office dive team.

Everyone involved in the effort to help the man was shaken by his jump, Kirkpatrick said, since there’s generally a higher chance for success when the situation lasts as long as it did.

“It’s a tragic, tragic thing,” said Mayor Dennis Hession.

He was at the scene throughout the day Friday talking with police and later consoling family members. The family was not ready to release information about the man.

Hession said he stood behind efforts by the city. “The officers were around him all day long and we’re supportive of the work they did,” he said.

Mandy McGhee, who had been watching from the library, said the man had come down from the ledge when officers approached him. She said the man then jumped over the ledge and hit the rocks below. “I was praying for him,” she said.

During the 20 hours the man sat on the bridge, some onlookers shouted at him. According to the Revised Code of Washington, if a person urges someone to follow through on a suicide attempt it can be a class C felony.