I watched a young man jump to his death Thursday afternoon. Thousands of others watched it, too. Because it was livestreamed on Facebook.
I opened the page a few minutes after 2 that afternoon, to retrieve a message, and at the top of my feed was a livestream from atop the Interstate 45-Interstate 20 exchange in southeast Dallas. Smash Da Topic, a breathless crime-news account with more than 1.6 million followers on Facebook alone, had been broadcasting from the location for hours, after it had been reported that a man standing atop his car on the overpass required police intervention. SWAT was on the scene. Traffic was backed up for miles.
At 2:09 p.m., I sent a colleague a link to the livestream, in which a young man — police would later confirm only that he was in his 20s — wearing a white shirt was talking to several cops standing nearby but keeping their distance. He appeared to be wiping his nose. I don’t follow Smash Da Topic. But there it was. At the top of my Facebook feed. Demanding I watch.
I texted my colleague that livestreaming the situation felt “irresponsible.” And only seconds later, the young man turned to his right, toward the camera, then climbed atop the railing, quickly, as though he’d just made the decision and didn’t want to change his mind. He dived headfirst, his arms out, and fell out of frame.
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One officer quickly gathered his gear and walked away. Others stood there, appearing stunned by the horrific, sudden, matter-of-fact conclusion.
Off camera, someone began screaming: “OH GOD OH GOD OH MY GOD.”
I immediately closed Facebook, then texted some journalists about what had just transpired. A former cops reporter here found the video and watched it to see how the officers responded. After a time, I opened it again, too, to find thousands of comments flooding the feed. Many grieved for the man and his family. Some wondered why the officers didn’t move in to grab the man or set up an inflatable rescue cushion below. A few others typed variations of the same sad, stupid joke, claiming he’d jumped because he was tired of watching the Dallas Cowboys. Because every day there’s some fresh horror.
Traffic was backed up for hours last Thursday along interstates 20 and 45 as Dallas police negotiated with a man atop the freeway interchange.
KXAS-TV (Channel 5)
Smash Da Topic left its initial video on Facebook, of the man standing atop his car on the overpass. But it eventually removed the entirety of the livestream, according to a note it posted to Facebook Saturday morning, because of “how upsetting the footage was.” The note wanted to make it clear: “Facebook did not remove” the video.
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“When we’re covering breaking news live in real time, there’s no opportunity to censor or edit what happens as the situation unfolds,” said the note. “This was an active SWAT situation, and unfortunately, the outcome was not what anyone had hoped for. … Witnessing something like that in real time is not easy, and it affected us as well. Our intention was never to be insensitive or disrespectful to anyone involved. Our goal has always been to keep our community informed about what’s happening around us.”
I do not know how livestreaming someone in distress — a person who can only harm himself and poses no risk to anyone else, someone whose family might not even know their loved one is threatening to jump off an overpass — is a community service. Nor do I know how Smash Da Topic would answer that: I sent a message Sunday afternoon, hoping to talk about lessons learned from such a bleak moment and received no response, other than a canned answer: “We try to be as responsive as possible. We’ll get back to you soon.”
Meta, though, did respond: Monday afternoon, a spokesperson named Sophie Vogel pointed me to the company’s Suicide, Self-Injury, and Eating Disorders policies, which have been rewritten numerous times in recent years.
Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux said Monday several of the officers involved in last week’s negotiations with the man who jumped from the freeway overpass will need counseling.
Smiley N. Pool/Dallas Morning News
Vogel wrote that “experts have told us that if someone is saying that they intend to attempt suicide on a live-stream, we should leave the content up for as long as possible because the longer that someone is talking to a camera, the more opportunity there is for a friend or family member to call emergency services.”
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Which doesn’t apply here. Because this young man — and his family — had no say in the matter Thursday. He was not identified, and he did not ask for an audience.
Vogel also said Facebook doesn’t “allow content that shows someone engaged in a suicide attempt or death by suicide.” Such content, she said, is removed “whenever we become aware of it.”
Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux said Monday he wouldn’t weigh in on the livestreaming issue. Because he won’t win whatever he says. Some will claim he’s clamping down on the public’s right to film and photograph the police. Or they will insist he’s giving permission to broadcast a tragedy.
The Interstate 20-Interstate 45 interchange, where Dallas police spent hours last week talking to a young man whose jump from the overpass was livestreamed on Facebook.
Robert Wilonsky/Staff writer
“All I will say is this: When it comes to journalists, everyone needs to understand they have a responsibility to the people who live in Dallas,” Comeaux said. “I have to let you read into what that responsibility is.”
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The chief would say he spent much of Monday morning speaking with the 20 officers who had spent Thursday trying to talk the young man off the overpass. Many, he said, had read or been told about the online comments saying they hadn’t done enough to keep him from jumping. So much second-guessing.
Comeaux said he told them to stay off the internet, not to read the comments. “But they’re human,” Comeaux sighed.
The officers told the chief “things didn’t make sense, because they thought it was trending in the right direction,” Comeaux said. “They felt they were gaining ground.” Officers had reached the man’s parents, a girlfriend. He’d been talking for hours with the negotiator, who Comeaux said is taking this especially hard.
“Several officers who were on the scene will need counseling,” Comeaux said. “I don’t think the community realizes that. I think they think officers are robots and move on from this. In the 1990s they told you to rub some dirt on it and go to the next call. But I’ve got a lot of broken employees right now.”
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Somewhere, too, is a broken family preparing to bury a boy whose private pain became, for a few hours last week, a public spectacle. Which should break us all.