After a seven-hour standoff , early Thursday morning authorities dissuaded a white male from jumping off the edge of the roof of a five-story building on Valencia Street.
With the street below empty of pedestrians and traffic, firefighters and negotiators above worked patiently through the night, talking with the man, who sometimes dangled his feet over the roof of the Crown Hotel at 528 Valencia St.
The police said their policy was to wait him out and shortly after midnight the man relented and officers escorted him to San Francisco General Hospital. Police said he was between 30 and 35-years-old.
Only hours earlier, police were a few blocks up near the Mission Playground and Pool where scenes from an upcoming segment of NBC’s Trauma were being filmed. But the drama at the Crown hotel was unscripted and kept a crowd of pedestrians waiting to see what would happen.
The Crown Hotel is one of more than a dozen single-room-occupancy hotels in the area near 16th Street. Residents rent by the week, but many are long-term tenants.
Several people near the scene of the incident said many of the hotel’s occupants have mental problems. The building, on the west side of Valencia between 16th and 17th streets, is the tallest building on the block, above the Limón restaurant.
Early in the siege, a man walked up to the yellow tape and told police he needed to go inside the hotel room for his medication.
“I’m starting to hear voices,” he said. Police escorted him into the building.
One passerby asked police, “Why don’t you guys lasso him?”
Police closed Valencia Street to all vehicles and pedestrians between 16th and 17th streets at 5 p.m.
Customers were prevented from walking into the many restaurants along the cordoned-off block.
“We don’t have any customers,” said William Virgil, one of the night managers at Puerto Alegre, a Mexican restaurant on the same block. “Zero.”
Clusters of pedestrians and residents at either end of the street were waiting for access. After 8 p.m., police escorted some residents into their buildings.
Bus service on the 26-Valencia was diverted down Mission Street.
Heather Duthie, Armand Emamdjomeh and Justin Juul contributed to this report.
During the year of 2001 i was drunk and it was a friday night and i was just watching the people below and so i decided to just sit on in my window looking outover the the whole crowd of people running and laughing having a usual friday night. so as i sit there drinking and just taking in the night and trying to stay cool,it was so ho that year, i see all thes people looking up at something and then i hear sirens and all these people gathering around and i began to wonder if my building was on fire or something,hahaha and all these people yelling up to me shouting something i couldn’t understand what but i started shout back at them just you know having fun,then a hook and ladder truck shows up and starts to raise its ladder up towards the building, so funny they thought i was a jumper but i lived there. good times
i remember dreaming of a woman but i wasn’t sleeping ,i was cooking dinner and i just had this vision of some woman doing some sort of house work and all of a sudden she just dropped what she was doing and looked toward the window and at a full running speed leapt out and killed herself. that room he is sitting above is room 401. i lived there and you could feel the dead in there,walking the halls. always someone watching you. someone also threw my cat Sabbath off the top balcony but she survived and had to get both front paws rebuilt,looked like the wolverine. that building destroyed m relationship wiht the best girl i’ve ever known as well.once we broke up and moved out it felt as if some evilwas lifted from me. by the way that building was condemned in 1975. it’s not even supposed to be livable.
i used to live right under where he was sitting from 99′-02′,it is a horrible place to live and depressing.one year during that time where there was that flesh eating disease that everyone was dying from or disfigured (heroin users) i would come home and there would be a dead body at the top of my stairs or in the hallway,you’d have to step over them just to get to the bathroom. didn’t know they were dead at the time but that happened like 4 times in as little as 6 months.
I think it would be classy for those who were inconvenienced by this situation to simply hold their tongues.
Everyone struggles.
Also @ Megan
I agree with you that there are ways I can improve my situation by attacking the system that keeps workers poor, and by working for a better world with more fair opportunities for all.
But how can we in one breath say that instead of expressing my frustration at being poor I should rise up and attack the system that created the economic situation I am in, and then in the same breath defend the act of public suicide?
If I am expected to be the master of all of my emotions and hold my breath whenever frustration takes hold of me, should we not also suggest to the man on the roof that instead of inflicting this horror on thousands of unsuspecting people he should rise up and attack the monsters in his life that have made him feel the way he feels? Aren’t we all are expected to behave in the same enlightened way?
Just because someone is frustrated on many levels doesn’t mean they don’t have a heart. In your attempt to express empathy for the man on the roof you are making me sound like a villain just because I am struggling. That’s a lousy way to run a conversation.
@Megan
Maybe you should have read my post completely. I was not – am not – angry at anyone. The human emotion I am expressing is called frustration. It occurs on its own, is valid and must be dealt with. I am only standing up for the workers who were affected. I did not express, nor do I feel, any bitterness or ill will toward the suicidal person who was on the roof. Quite the opposite. But it is funny how little my landlord in NYC cares what the reasons are that my rent is late. Do you feel me? Poverty causes hardships that cannot be understood unless you are poor. In a complex public situation like this one, there are going to naturally be a wide range of authentic, valid human emotions to express, so what is the point of going on a witch hunt against someone who expresses their frustration.
@megan Bravo! You said what I was too emotional to deliver. It takes those closest to the fire to understand the heat.
I live near there and walked by on my way home yesterday. I totally understand the folks who are upset at not being able to go to work last night. However, I just want to add that those complaints are much easier to express in the aftermath when everyone knows the man is ok now. All night I kept hoping not only that the man would not jump but also that no one would have to see him jump, and land, on Valencia St. Honestly guys, can you imagine how horrible that would be to see and hear? It would be stuck in your head forever. I’m sure it also would not be good for business if 1/2 your restaurant or bar went home with that image in their heads.
they should have done what Dirty Harry did
I obviously am not aware of Roger or Marcus’ economic situation, but I think you are being quick to assume that they have lots of money and/or that money isn’t a necessity to them just because they value the life of this person more than a few businesses losing money on one night. I was on Valencia last night, and the way people were reacting was disgusting. I overheard people loudly talking about what an asshole this guy was to burden people who wanted to eat at those restaurants on Valencia, how selfish he was for causing a disruption to business, etc, and the fact that someone actually yelled “why don’t you jump already?” left me completely destroyed. I volunteer my evenings at a mental health clinic, counseling people in need of help, like this man, and I can’t even begin to imagine what it does to someone on the verge of ending their life, to hear a random stranger encouraging them to jump because of the inconvenience they were causing to business.
I actually also overheard someone last night saying how if this guy wanted to kill himself, he should have done it at home, by himself, to avoid creating a burden for other people and businesses. Is that what we’ve become as a society? Encouraging people who are in a bad state mentally to kill themselves quietly as to avoid inconveniencing anyone? Phillip, what if someone you loved was in this situation? Would you place a higher value on one night of work over their entire life? If this guy had been alone, he might have succeeded in killing himself; at least because he tried in a public setting, he was able to get help, which is what many people contemplating suicide need: a compassionate and empathetic public willing to help and not judge.
Phillip, instead of taking your anger out on this man, why not seek out those who are actually responsible for your economic situation, like people in power who make decisions that affect the livelihoods of working people, or the banks or other institutions that have caused the economic meltdown in this country, or our capitalistic culture that creates a huge divide between the rich and the poor. Address the structural and institutional root causes behind the reason that you have to scrape by to make your rent or pay for grocerys: these factors affect your entire life, and not just one night’s paycheck.
@Phillip Barcio.
Unfortunately, we are all connected. It’s the human race. You cannot separate out the ripple effect that one person’s choice, whether right, wrong, sick, insane, valid, or invalid, has on others. The truth is, his problems are our problems if we continue to push mental health issues to the side, talk people off a ledge, no matter how long it takes, and then toss him off to SF General. Because the reality is that this most likely won’t be his last attempt. And another is that you or someone you love will be touched by suicide, and once you go through that, your paycheck won’t be on the forefront of your mind. I’m in some ways with you, in the sense, that it’s not fair that others suffer in lieu of his suffering. But you see, his suffering will continue, the system will fail him, and somehow we all will be affected until to root cause of suicide is eradicated (I’m not certain this is possible in the human race, but I can hope).
Just as it’s possible that the chemicals in our water caused the cancer in the woman with breast cancer (if this indeed the case), it’s probably also storing more uranium in your body, which at some point, might affect you, and me, and the guy you work with. So these problems affect all of us, and in a sense, it’s all of our responsibility to do something beyond feeling put out that saving a life too so long.
I am crushed that this man got to the point where he felt this was his best course of action. Loneliness and isolation are crippling for many of us, and especially for the developmentally or mentally challenged. But I would like to address the comments people on the scene made about money and business from a different perspective than Roger and Marcus.
The servers, bussers, dishwashers, line cooks, cleaners, bartenders, clerks and cocktailers who work on that street are living on thin margins. I am one of them. Missing one night of work can cause a rent check to fall short or a grocery bill unpaid. Shutting Valencia street down all night caused anxiety and stress and poverty to tighten their grip on hundreds of people and their families yesterday. Why criticize someone for bemoaning the financially destructive ripple effect created by this man’s choice? To Roger and Marcus who commented above I say this: If money is not a necessity to you, give some of your unwanted money to the workers whose livelihood was threatened last night. If human life holds so much value for you, spend your day today at SF General by this man’s bedside.
Respect for life means respect for everyone’s life, and it means grasping the multitude of effects one person’s decision can have on all of the residents of a neighborhood.
so if we’re talking about compassion and helping people in dire straits, why the hell is it SFPD policy to let him sit there and dangle his feet off the edge for 7 hours?! they should have removed him from the situation and provided him medical help. Now that would have been a compassionate way to respect the value of human life. not to mention let the dollars flow along the block. everybody’s happy!
As someone who lost her boyfriend to suicide, I hope that those who shot photos and video further their efforts by supporting mental health conversations, reach out to loved ones who ever threaten suicide because those threats are the loudest cries for help, and don’t let this incident fall short in their minds. Suicide is becoming one of the highest killers in men and while everyone has their own story, this is a story that we all need to be talking about…not gawking about. peace out. amanda
Quote: Another woman, passing by, said “that’s f#$ked up, he’s shutting down all the businesses on the street, no one can make any money.”
So much for the value of human life.
What’s really “f#$ked up” is reacting to another human being’s despair with “no one can make any money.”
Thanks for the good news– I hope he receives continued support, especially as holidays are here.
Mentally ill people are misunderstood. Their burden is compounded by ostracization.
What resources are available in the Mission for them? Who are their advocates?
My brother took his life as a result of schizophrenia (a disease of the brain, not a character flaw). He was a gentle musician and former engineer. Had he found a more compassion society instead of fear, I think he would’ve still been around today.
Well, meme, either way, he’d come down voluntarily, no?
i was driving by 16/val just as police/emergency arrived on the scene. i’m not going to judge. i hope for everyone’s sake that he came down voluntarily.