Woman wishes suicidal people would jump in their own neighborhoods

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So many bodies have fallen from the sky into Juliet Shreve's neighborhood that she can't remember specifics. They blend together into one limp, anonymous figure. "They never came one after another," she says. "They'd always catch you by surprise."

She must sift through her memory before one sticks out. It was June 27, 1990.

Her children were still in grade school. The dense woods around her house were thick with trees and bushes, overgrown with vines and dogwoods. She was sitting in the still shade of her 1912 colonial, dwarfed by the colossal concrete legs of the All-America Bridge, more commonly known as the Y-Bridge.

It's a massive 3,400-foot snake of concrete that slithers over the lush Little Cuyahoga Valley and splits into a Y as it approaches downtown Akron. Its arched steel frame sits 150 feet in the air, bleeding rust onto the thick concrete limbs that rise above the surrounding greenery.

Below, Shreve's street is seldom traveled. A narrow, one-way passage on the edge of a steep hill, East Lods Street is tucked between the bustle of downtown and the Italian restaurants of North Hill. The bridge protects Shreve and her neighbors from the scorching sun and the harsh winter snow.

As her kids played in its shade, Shreve relaxed to the sound of cars whooshing by overhead. Then, she heard the rustle of trees and a heavy thud. "Someone hollered, 'A body!'" she recalls.

She ran to her backyard, her daughter and two sons at her side. They came upon a man splayed out in the grass, next to the bushes. Shreve remembers the middle-aged white guy lying on his stomach, his head busted open. His name was James Lehman. He was 33 years old.

http://clevescene.com/Issues/2005-06-08/news/feature.html

...I noted that the article said most of the jumpers were white, while the poor bastards getting disturbed people falling on them were black. Hmmmmm.

Past time for some fencing and a damn video link to head things off before you have the guy balanced on the edge.

Of course, some access to decent and affordable mental health care would probably obviate most of the problems, too....

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But when the city conducted its own study in 2003, it decided that the cost of fencing off the bridge -- $1 million for a fence, or $2.3 million for a more elaborate Plexiglas system -- outweighed the benefits.

Besides, it was likely that a fence would just displace the suicides, not deter them. "It would solve the problem of people jumping off that bridge, but not of people taking their lives," says the city's spokesman, Mark Williamson. "They'll just go somewhere else.


I can't believe the city has not erected any barrier to deter the jumpers...that is just plain irresponsible. The above pretty much sums up the apathy of the city. W/o doing something they are directly responsible for promoting suicides and as such should be held liable.