Two follow-ups on weekend news items to clear up a few mysteries:
- : Police have determined that the person who fell from an upper story of the low income housing apartment building at 610 Harvard Ave E committed suicide. Not surprisingly, it’s not the first suicide involving the apartment tower. We received a handful of e-mails telling us about past deaths at the building. We’ll see what more we can learn about the building and any safety measures that have been taken. As we noted on Saturday, mainstream media mostly ignores suicide coverage. We believe it is an important community issue to cover.
- : We also were able to gather more information on Saturday night’s lockdown of Pine and 12th Ave that kept streets closed and apartment and condo dwellers near SPD’s East Precinct headquarters stuck inside.
According to SPD, police discovered a suitcase had been left behind in the East Precinct’s public lobby around 6 PM Saturday. Investigators were brought in to determine the bag’s contents while the streets around the building at the corner of 12th and Pine were cordoned off. The bag was determined to be luggage and not a threat and the area was re-opened by 10 PM.
I’m struck by the words used to describe the tragic suicide on Harvard. To refer to the unfortunate history of suicide in this building as “unsurprising” implies that the struggling working class and poor have less reason to live than their fellow citizens who are lucky enough to be better off.
It refers to the fact the building is a tower. Sorry if I confused you.