Talking to the river

OK so the bridge was named after the Fifth President, not the first, but it was the second time that Spokane made headlines last week.

On Monday afternoon (and lasting well into Tuesday morning) a major fire at a fuel depot sent unknown quantities of petroleum products into the storm sewers connected to the Spokane River.

A helicopter was hired to fly along the Spokane River on Tuesday, looking for pooled pockets of oil, Gilbert said. Crews were also walking along the river looking for oil.

Then on Thursday evening a standoff began on the Monroe Street Bridge with a mentally ill young man recently released from a state hospital.

Friday after lunch I walked across the Post Street Bridge to drop some drawings off at the county courthouse. A crowd was gathered along the railing on the west side with video cameras trained on the lone figure still perched on the railing across the chasm. In the snarled traffic on Broadway an SUV overheated and caught fire. I decided to come back through the park above the falls rather than deal with the cops and rubberneckers again.

Josh Levy, 28, jumped to his death Friday afternoon after spending some 20 hours threatening to jump from the downtown bridge over the Spokane River.

Levy was shocked by a Taser right after police negotiators managed to talk him away from the bridge edge. But the Taser did not disable Levy, who then jumped and died when he hit the rocks below.

OK, you want to have some sympathy for the cops involved, but considering the SPD's recent track record with the mentally disabled, it's hard to do.

It seems that suicides fall into one of two categories: a desperate cry for attention or a genuine desire to end one's own misery. I had figured that after several hours it was a case of the former. Maybe it was but the negotiated take-down was botched, or maybe it was his intention to die all along and all he needed was a push. Or maybe, the categories aren't as clear as we like to think. Twenty hours of suspense followed by a couple seconds of freefall were quite probably the most powerful statement he could have ever made. Could it be that he simultaneously wanted say something to the world and to end it all?

In our society there tend to be two responses to suicide: pity or contempt. It's either "a permanent solution to a temporary problem" or "the coward's way out". But I can think of another way to look at it. From what little we know of Levy's history, his illness was hardly temporary. It appears to have been every bit as debilitating as any other severe chronic disease. While mental illness is treatable, often the treatment is worse than living with the symptoms. I'm sure many of us can relate with someone suffering from painful terminal cancer choosing to end their own life. Was his pain and suffering any different? What is brave about putting yourself and your family through prolonged misery? For what?

In the end, I believe that Josh Levy died as he could not live. On his own terms. No one can take that away from him.