Update: 5:30 p.m. Thursday, more details from WCPD press release.
Walnut Creek police are investigating an apparent suicide Thursday afternoon after a woman in her late twenties jumped from the Nordstrom store at Broadway Plaza.
She was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
"Witnesses and the subsequent investigation revealed the subject was by herself when she intentionally jumped off the third-floor balcony," police stated in a Thursday evening news release. She landed near the sidewalk at South Broadway and Mount Diablo Boulevard.
The woman's identity was withheld pending notification by the Contra Costa County Coroner's Office, police reported.
Officers temporarily blocked traffic on Broadway Thursday afternoon to aid the investigation. Traffic flow was restored at 3:13 p.m. Thursday, police said.
The incident took place about 1:45 p.m. Thursday. The jump apparently was from a second-floor patio of the cafe at Nordstrom to the sidewalk below.
I know almost nothing about psychology, but my gut says that the predictable infamy of such a suicide could possibly be a contributing factor that might push some troubled people over the line. I say this not to judge or condemn a clearly very troubled person, but to argue against sensational media coverage of such events. Not to compare insane mass murderers to suicide victims, but I also think we / the media should avoid providing the notoriety/infamy to them. Denying fame posthumously obviously does not change history, but it might critically change the calculus for other mentally troubled people in the future.
"In a 2001 University of Houston study of 153 survivors of nearly lethal attempts between the ages of 13 and 34, only 13 percent reported having contemplated their act for eight hours or longer. To the contrary, 70 percent set the interval between deciding to kill themselves and acting at less than an hour, including an astonishing 24 percent who pegged the interval at less than five minutes." Given the short duration of time people contemplated a serious suicide attempt (defined as one in which success had a high probability of likelihood), it's unlikely "predictable infamy" really enters into their thought process. 2 to 3 people jump from the Golden Gate bridge each month and those suicides are rarely reported. They only make the news if the person is famous (when a local radio host did this about 20 years ago) or they cause a major traffic delay on the bridge. However, most jumpers don't tie up traffic because they tend to jump quickly and not linger. I would agree that press coverage of such incidents should be rare and handled with the utmost sensitivity - which should include not allowing comments to stories about suicides. Here's the link to the article about bridge jumpers. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/magazine/06suicide-t.html
I suggest WC Police check this out tomorrow.
I thank you for all the comments it is such a tragedy it hurts so much but no one can understand why such an awesome person with a beatyfull life, who was willing to help so many people, and lived such a succesfull life forgot about herself. She has so many people who love her and enjoyed to be around her ,she was lovely girl who managed to stay in school and graduate,spoke more then two language and was overall very inteligent. She could not take the pain that she was going thru, as you can see this news may help you to make the life of a person having the sadness and troubles she went through, please give them all the love they need and make them happy as much as you can.Only she knows how it feels.
There are so many of "us" hurting for this young woman. I have been desperate to know what could have driven such a brutal action in someone so young. I have cried more than once for her and the thought of what her family must b going through. I think people want to know more because we want to learn how to help, be aware and offer ourselves to anyone in this state of mind. Love to all who know and love this young woman.