Man safe after threatening to jump at HennCo gov't center

A man who threatened to jump from the 23rd floor of the Hennepin County Government Center is safe and has been taken to a local hospital for psychiatric treatment.

The man scaled a barrier on a bridge between the building's two towers a few minutes before noon Tuesday, said Hennepin County spokeswoman Carolyn Marinan. A crisis team responded, and county officials restricted access to the first floor lobby.

Crisis workers convinced the man to return to safety shortly before 6 p.m.

Marinan said three people committed suicide by jumping off the bridge in separate incidents in the 1970s. The county installed a 10-foot-tall Plexiglass barrier in the early 1980s to prevent suicides, she said.

"You'd have to really want to get over that, and I'm not sure how that happened," Marinan said.

She said a similar incident occurred in 1997, and the person agreed not to jump after talking with a crisis team for more than two hours.