Woman on a Ledge… on twitter.

http://blogs.ajc.com/atlanta-falcons-blog/2012/09/24/atlanta-police-arrest-falcons-defensive-end-john-abraham/

http://www.11alive.com/news/article/258151/40/Falcons-DB-arrested-at-Atlantic-Station-


Sadly, this is the closest I can get to what could have been a travesty.


A few days ago I was talking to Alex Hadjidakiss about this.  On September 24th, a woman at the Twelve Hotel & Residences in Atlantic Station was on a balcony threatening to jump.  Alex happened to be headed to Target with his wife and saw all the commotion.  According to him (and I believe every single word of this, not only because I trust him but it's completely in line with the sort of society we're becoming) people were on their balconies and in the street watching.

Now, that's not uncommon.  People have been jumping off of ledges (or threatening to do so) in front of crowds for ages.  These kinds of things have always drawn onlookers, regardless of whether that is what the person on the ledge wants.  What was interesting about Alex's account was that he said that there were so many people on their cell phones taking pictures, even other people hanging off of their balconies as well.

That is the strange society of voyeurs that we're turning into.

We're developing a culture where people jump off of ledges (or, let's just be honest, sometimes they just threaten to for the attention) and we watch, take videos and post them on facebook.  We tweet about it. "Talk about the crazy shit I see while watching the sunset #ontheledge."  Or something like that.

I'm glad the woman was unhurt.  I can't imagine how traumatic it would have been to watch it actually happen.  As far as I can find, it didn't even make the news; what made the news was the Falcons' player who was either determined to go back into his house (he lives in that building) or determined to cross police lines to get a better view.  He was arrested and charged with obstruction of firefighters and obstruction of police officers.

I wish I could have gotten photographs of all these people taking photographs of a woman on a ledge.  I am even more inspired now, as this is sicker and more perverse than anything I could come up with.