9/11 memorialPolice wary of suicide attempts at 9/11 memorial
Aside from the threat of terrorism, the New York City Police Department worries about the risks of suicide at the national 9/11 memorial; The memorial is focused around two sunken granite pools where the World Trade Center towers once stood; some fear that visitors, so overcome by grief, may attempt to commit suicide by throwing themselves into the pools
Police are concerned over the possibility of suicides at the memorial site // Source: corriere.it
Aside from the threat of terrorism, the New York City Police Department worries aboutthe risks of suicide at the national 9/11 memorial.
The memorial is focused around two sunken granite pools where the World Trade Center towers once stood. The pools, which are three stories below ground, are ringed at the top by an eight foot moat which is surrounded by a bronze parapet inscribed with the names of those who died in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.
Some fear that visitors, so overcome by grief, may attempt to commit suicide by throwing themselves into the pools.
“Our big worry several years ago, in the original design, was terrorism, and now we add suicide to the equation,” said Glenn P. Corbett, an associate professor of fire science at John Jay College, in an interview with the New York Times. Corbett is an advisor to the Skyscraper Safety Campaign which has criticized the 9/11 memorial as not being safe and secure enough. “I think it’s going to happen — a suicide. I think it is an unbelievably emotional site,” he said.
So far of the millions of visitors to the memorial, none have attempted to commit suicide since it opened last September, but officials remain wary.
“We have to think of these possibilities,” said Raymond W. Kelly, the commissioner of the NYPD, in an interview with Esquire. “People might commit suicide. We’re concerned about the possibility of somebody jumping in.”
Experts on grief say memorials can exacerbate existing negative psychological feelings, especially for those who have yet to come to terms with the traumatic events.
Dr. Dana M. Alonzo, an associate professor of social work at the Columbia University School of Social Work, said individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder have been known to have worsened symptoms after visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.
“If they have not completed the mourning process, or the mourning process is complicated, which is what generally happens when someone’s loved one dies in a violent type of death, then the grieving process can take on the form of complicated grief,” Dr. Alonzo explained to the New York Times.
“The memorial, rather than serving as a source of comfort, can heighten feelings of either ‘This is unjust’ or desires for revenge of some sort,” she said. “They can feed into those negative feelings that the person is stuck in.”
Sally Regenhard, who lost her son, a firefighter, in the attacks on the World Trade Center, said committing suicide in the memorial pools had “passed my mind — that people might think of really jumping in, in grief.”
“When people see water, this is such a grief-stricken area that it is certainly within the realm of possibility,” Regenhard told the New York Times. “It’s something that should be thought about.”
Kelly said the NYPD has a strategy in place to prevent suicides at the 9/11 memorial, but did not go into further detail. The memorial is currently patrolled by police officers from the Port Authority and the NYPD.
According to Michael Frazier, a spokesman for the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum, there have been “no incidents in the pools, whatsoever.”
