PASADENA >> Police crisis negotiators spent two hours persuading a distraught woman to return to safety and accept help after she threatened to jump from the Colorado Street Bridge in Pasadena late Saturday, officials said.
The incident began about 10:15 p.m. when officers responded to a Pasadena home to investigate reports of an argument between a man and a woman, Pasadena police Lt. Mark Goodman said.
Police discovered the woman had been involved in an argument with her husband, he said. The woman, who officers recognized from a previous suicide attempt at the Colorado Street Bridge, got into her car and drove away once police arrived. Police then learned she had told her husband she was suicidal.
“Officers suspected she may be going to the bridge,” Goodman said. “Their suspicions were correct.”
Police found the woman clinging to the outside of the safety railing along the south side of the fence along the iconic 144-foot-tall bridge.
Police crisis negotiators, as well as members of the department’s Homeless Outreach-Psychiatric Evaluation Team responded to speak with the woman.
“(They) spoke with her for about two hours and convinced her to climb back over to the safety of the bridge,” Goodman said.
The woman was taken to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation.