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Distraught man pulled from 8th-floor ledge at Boston City Hall

E-mail|Link October 9, 2009 05:07 PM

(Michael Levenson/Globe Staff)

The man, dressed in a dirty blue jacket and camouflage shorts, had been sitting on the edge of a publicly accessible balcony with his back up against the edge.

By Michael Levenson and Donovan Slack, Globe Staff

Boston police and firefighters pulled a distraught man off of an eighth-floor ledge at City Hall after a 15-minute standoff this afternoon during which the man screamed repeatedly in Spanish that he wanted to see Mayor Thomas M. Menino.

(Michael Levenson/Globe Staff)

The man, dressed in a dirty blue jacket and camouflage shorts, had been sitting on the edge of a publicly-accessible balcony with his back up against the edge. Had he moved backward, the man would have fallen several stories.

Sirens wailed as a dozen police and firefighters stood near the man, trying to calm him down. City employees watched the drama unfold on the outdoor patio that is across a hallway from a popular City Hall sandwich shop.

"Yo quiero ver a Menino!" the man yelled, saying over and over in Spanish, "I want to see Menino!"

Officer Frank Colon of the Boston Municipal Protective Services, who speaks Spanish, asked the man his name to try to develop a rapport with him, authorities said. When he did, the man reached into a plastic bag and pulled out a prescription medicine bottle that had his name on the label and threw the bottle on the ground near Colon. Because the man was distracted at that moment, officers ran up from behind and tackled him off the ledge.

“The man was very upset,” said Sergeant John Donovan of the Boston Municipal Protective Services, who helped keep the man calm. “I don’t know whether it was medical or emotional but he was very agitated.”

The rescue was the talk of the city workforce, shattering a sleepy, rainy Friday afternoon before the long holiday weekend.

“Not your typical day at City Hall,” Donovan said. “It’s nice when things end well. Happy days are good for everybody.”

And as for Colon?

“He stepped up big-time, so I let him go early,” Donovan said. “Tomorrow’s another day.”