FLORA, Ill.—An extremely tense situation this evening in Flora was successfully concluded, not because of the presence of a SWAT team and a host of negotiators, but by simple, good old-fashioned police work.
Flora Police Chief John Nicholson reports that the situation came to their attention earlier this evening when a man was reported as being atop a cell tower on South State Street adjacent to Elmwood Cemetery, threatening suicide.
Upon arrival, officers discovered a male subject up on the tower, who was claiming he was going to kill himself by hanging, indicating he had a rope.
As officers gathered and attempted to talk to him, the man also advised that he was just going to jump from atop the cell tower, which would most certainly have killed him up on landing in the gravel at the base.
Flora police talked to the man and kept him talking for a full hour and 45 minutes….but outside the chain link fence that surrounded the cell tower base. The chain link fence, Nicholson said, was eight feet in height, and was topped with barbed wire. The suicidal man had made it inside by scaling over the fence as the gate entrance was locked. However, every time any officer attempted to climb the fence, the man would climb higher on the cell tower, thus any officer trying to get inside was futile as it was reducing the chances of the man coming down the tower.
Sgt. Guy Durre, in a photo from the Clay County Advocate, utilized here under the Fair Use Act
Eventually, the man’s brother showed up, and with coaxing from him and from the police, the man climbed down. The brother convinced the man to “turn around and face the fence” where everyone was gathered…right about the time Assistant Police Chief Guy Durre was able to jimmy the lock on the facility’s fence, rush through, and tackle the suicidal man to the ground. Durre held him there while officers came through the gate and together, they took him into custody and to the hospital for evaluation.
Nicholson said it was Durre who did most of the talking, Durre whose timing with getting the gate open was key, and Durre who “basically just held the guy down in a big bear hug until the rest of the officers could get there.”
The man, who is 24-25 years old and is from Geff down in Wayne County, is going to be evaluated, Nicholson said. He advised that the young man was largely uninjured except for “a beer bottle that he broke over his head” at some point prior to the negotiations kicking off.
Flora Police Chief John Nicholson
Nicholson also said they have no plans at this time to charge the young man; “we’re just glad he’s okay and that we could prevent anything bad happening to him,” he said, and gave kudos to his department’s actions and special props to Durre, who, Nicholson said, “had his phone on the entire hour and 45 minutes, and I could hear everything that was going on.
“They did a great job.”
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