The funniest part is that his name is Moody
Continuing with the NY theme today:
A New York City man filed a lawsuit this month seeking $400,000 in damages after a pair of police officers mistook his cigarette break for a suicide attempt.
Mark Moody, a 40-year-old trial lawyer, was sitting on the window sill of his second-floor apartment, smoking a cigarette back in August when he says a police car stopped in front of his building. One of the officers got out and asked him if he was trying to commit suicide.
That warranted ambulances, four more police cars and being taken to psych ward for evaluation.
January 27th, 2011 at 10:39 am
If a guy leaves a note and walks along a building edge threatening to jump the result will be ambulances, police cars, a psych ward evaluation – all because he might be crazy for smoking.
January 27th, 2011 at 10:43 am
Leaving aside that he’s in NY, doesn’t this involuntary commitment affect his ability to purchase a gun or get a concealed permit?
January 27th, 2011 at 11:33 am
@wolfwood-nope. Maybe if Shumer has his way, but a 72 hr evaluation period wouldnt bar you. I’m pretty sure they figured out the dude wasn’t crazy once he got there.
January 27th, 2011 at 11:47 am
I wonder if he was trying to look urban-ultracool in a film noir sort of way. It didn’t even take a call from his mother to human services, either for him to get arrested. Just chillin’ out looking cool, watchin’ the girls go by on city streets, smoke casually in hand. Next thing: You’re arrested (taken into custody involuntarily, without the option to leave freely). Wonder what would have happened if some evaluator had decided he was a bit on the edge.
January 27th, 2011 at 12:16 pm
Isn’t it a little difficult to commit suicide by jumping from the 2nd floor?
Wonder when they will start picking up people walking along the street because at any minute they could jump out in front of a vespa scooter.
January 27th, 2011 at 12:45 pm
Best comment from the linked article: “Obviously the story’s a hoax, nobody would try to talk down a lawyer.”
January 27th, 2011 at 1:38 pm
It depends on the state. I believe that in CA a 72hr hold bars you for five years?
January 27th, 2011 at 4:17 pm
We can expect more of this, as the psychiatric “profession” periodically revamps its Big Book of Craziness to match what the market will bear. Narcissism is no longer a complex, for instance. Tobacco is a drug addiction, and there’s no reason why the desire to purchase a weapon couldn’t be analyzed into the reason you shouldn’t be allowed to.
As several clever commenters have noted, there’s no reason to mention it in an address or hold a vote if you can win the issue with fine print alone by the dark of the moon. The crazy, lunatic, three-wolf second-story moon.