By: Paul Corby, Windsor, Ontario
Living on Riverside Drive in Windsor, I have a great view of the Detroit River. A couple of weeks ago, I looked out and saw a few police cars gathered with officers standing in a group near the river. There was somebody on the other side of the waist high railing. With binoculars I saw it was a woman wearing a purple coat, a purple scarf, and a purple backpack. She was very agitated. I couldn’t hear her but I could see that she was yelling. Whenever the officers got near the railing, she would charge at them and try to spit on them.
I watched this for two hours. It was apparent that the officers were concerned that she would jump into the river as they had life rings nearby. The police even brought Tim Horton’s food and coffee for her. She threw it back at them. A Social Worker and some plain clothes men (possibly Police Chaplains?) also tried speaking with her. She yelled at them and they dispersed as well. Soon after, four officers wearing SWAT looking grey uniforms arrived. They took control and the others backed off. As they tried speaking with her, two Police boats and a Coast Guard boat pulled up and positioned themselves close to the river break wall.
I could see that 2 of the SWAT officers put on inflatable life jackets. They slowly approached the woman from different directions. They were talking to her and slowly moving toward her. As they got into their positions, one officer said something to distract her. At the same time, the second officer leaped toward her. He grabbed her and pulled her back over the railing. The 2 officers lowered her to the ground and held her there. Quickly a stretcher was brought in and with the help of the EMS, they got her strapped down with a spit shield over her head. She was taken away in the ambulance.
As I mentioned earlier, I watched this for 2 hours. Altogether I saw the following:
- At least 12 regular duty police officers
- 4 SWAT style officers
- 3 Social Workers or Chaplains
- 2 Windsor Police boats with 4 officers
- A Cost Guard boat with 2 men in cold water dive suits
- 2 ambulances with 4 EMS workers
- A Windsor fire tuck with 4 or 5 firemen
At least things ended as well as could be. No one ended up in the cold river and no one was injured. But that was a lot manpower being used to safely subdue one woman.
Then, 3 days later, I was running along the river and saw the woman again. Same purple scarf and purple backpack. She was screaming at imaginary people. Kind of wandering along and yelling and gesturing to nobody in particular. Two days after that I again saw her at the river. She was sitting up against a building to stay out of the light rain. And she was still yelling and gesturing at no one. I thought to myself that a lot of manpower was used originally to get her back to safety. Now she was right back at the river and still not in a good state of mind. Our system sprang into action to make her safe but they could not hold her long enough. Now she’s back and likely heading to another bad encounter.
