Cops foil downtown T.O. suicide attempt

By Terry Davidson

First posted: Saturday, December 31, 2011 07:43 PM EST

TORONTO - Police thwarted a suicide attempt at a high rise building in downtown Toronto Saturday afternoon.
Shattered glass came raining down in front of the entrance to 777 Bay St. just before 3 p.m. Fifteen floors up was a gaping hole among the tinted windows of the McLean-Hunter office tower.
One witness told the Toronto Sun a man could be seen lingering near the hole, behaving erratically and waving his arms in the air. “At first, I thought he was trying to fix the window,” said Kevin Hillie, 31. “But then he was sort of dangling out the window, then he’d go back inside...People were yelling at him, ‘Stay where you are! Stay where you are!’”
Police cordoned off the area as numerous fire trucks and ambulances parked around the building.
The man, an office employee in the building, had broken the window with a hammer, according to 52 Division staff sgt. Craig Lewers. He was coaxed away from the window, arrested under the mental health act and taken to hospital, Lewers said.
“He knocked out a window and threatened to jump...(but) (police) managed to gain entry into the office and convinced him to come with us.” ” said Lewers, who could not give the man’s name, age, or who he worked for in the building.
According to police on the scene, he was taken to hospital with cuts to his “arms and wrists.”
“A guy tried to jump out the window,” said constable Bassey Osagie outside the high-rise office tower. “We have him in custody...He broke the window and tried to jump through it.”