On November 18th, one of our West Precinct officers was recognized and thanked for his excellent work in the precinct and specifically his response to a suicidal woman on the Aurora Bridge one morning on his way home from work.
On November 6th at approximately 5 AM, the off-duty officer observed a woman on the Aurora Bridge near the railing. It was pouring down rain and the officer had just completed his 9-hour shift. Instead of just calling the incident in to 911, he turned around and made a second pass. The woman was still standing by the rail. By the time the officer parked his car and approached on foot, the woman had climed over the railing and was standing on the ledge. The officer began a dialogue with the distraught woman. By sheer coincidence, this officer is also a member of the SPD Hostage Negotiation Team whose members are often employed to respond to these types of situations. After about an hour, the officer (and additional uniformed officers who had now arrived on the scene) persuaded her not to take her life and to return to safety.
A senior officer on scene commented that in his 25+ years of law enforcement he has never seen an officer handle this type of situation as amazingly as this officer did.