Michigan Police Officers Rescue Man From Suicide Attempt On Highway Overpass On Easter

A group of Michigan police officers are being commended for intervening to prevent a man from ending his own life by jumping from an overpass onto a busy highway on Easter Sunday.

The City of Warren Police Department said multiple 911 callers reported seeing a man scaling the overpass barrier at the Groesbeck interchange with Interstate 696 at around 6:55 p.m. on April 20, Easter Sunday. Multiple callers reported that the man appeared to be getting ready to jump from the overpass onto the highway.

Officers quickly arrived to find a 32-year-old man atop the safety fence overlooking the highway, and the subject “immediately expressed his desire to commit suicide,” police said.

A video shared by the department on May 1 shows the man precariously perched on the fence over the highway in apparent distress when officers arrive. He becomes agitated as the officers approach, and they try to calm him, asking his name.

“What’s going on? Talk to me, dude,” an officer says. “We can figure this out together, alright. We’ve all been through something, alright. I guarantee your [censored] is not so upset that [censored] wants you up here, OK?”

Police said that as officers continued talking to the man and establishing rapport, they learned of his “profound despair and his ongoing struggles with mental illness.”

“The situation became tense as the male began to slide down the fence towards the expressway, as officers moved in to secure him,” police said. As the man continued to express his desire to kill himself, officers physically pulled him away from the ledge to safety.

The man was transported to a hospital for a mental health evaluation.

“The dedication of each member of this Department to serving the Warren community is noticeable in everything we do,” police said. “In this instance, the collective knowledge and decisive actions of these officers culminated in a life saved on Easter Sunday.”