Homeless man hangs onto small tree over cliff drop for hours in standoff with police

Spokane police spent about four hours Thursday night trying to talk a man off a cliff’s ledge as he threw rocks at officers and tried to light fires in grass around him.

Just before 9 p.m. Thursday, police responded to a malicious mischief call in the 1600 block of East Hartson Avenue. A caller reported a man was walking up and down the street breaking car windows. He appeared to be high or intoxicated, according to a Spokane Police Department news release.

When officers arrived, the suspect, later identified as Edmon Ling, 35, fled to a vacant field north of Hartson Avenue that overlooks Liberty Park and the Ben Burr Trail below, according to the release.

The suspect went over the edge of a steep drop to a ledge about 30 feet below and began trying to light the hillside on fire.

Later, officers found the man had a camp concealed under some trees on the ledge.

From his camp, he crawled out to the edge of an even larger drop and grabbed a small tree, suspending himself above a 50- to 75-foot cliff above the park and trail below, according to the release.

Officers tried to talk Ling off the ledge and get him to surrender. Instead, he started throwing “softball-size” rocks at the officers and lighting the grass and brush on fire, the release said.

Spokane police hostage negotiators, Spokane police SWAT and units from the Spokane Fire Department responded. SWAT officers and firefighters used rescue and rappelling equipment to prepare for a rescue of the defendant and secure themselves to the hillside.

Spokane police SWAT and negotiators spent hours trying to deescalate the situation, as the man continued to throw rocks, light small fires and threaten to “commit violent criminal acts against the wives and mothers of the officers on the scene,” according to the release.

At about 1 a.m. Friday, the defendant surrendered.