The police panel that chooses officers for the Hostage Negotiation Team of the Seattle Police Department is a group of fairly typical people. It's easy to imagine fetching a hot dog off the grill with them, or chatting about a play, or starting a grocery together.

When they evaluate a police officer for this job, they expect him to listen intently, and actively, to the subject—which is as likely to be a suicidal young man or woman as it is to be a violent criminal. And for this team, no jumper is too pathetic, too whiny, or too resistant to help. Anyone standing on a bridge, beyond a railing, is the officer's friend.

The suicidal man wants to believe that someone is his friend. Having lost everything, the only reason to wait is indecision—perhaps there's something out there, some soft human mind, that would prefer him alive. No tie into the rest of humanity is reason enough to think about ending life. But how to know that things won't improve? So we force the issue by taking ourselves to the point of no return, and waiting for a sign. Now, at the moment before death, will anyone believe in my despair? Will the slightest thing happen to deter me?

So when the police officer appears, you want to believe he cares. When you can tell he's listening to what you're saying, that he appreciates your problem, you latch on to him, you calm down, you remember what life was like, how warm it was, and still could be.

Now my question is: Why does the SPD handle these calls at all? They deal with a suicide every single day, and why? The team is candid, they joke—No SNL gag is beyond their ken. Their sense of life, their sense of humor, is on par with your basic bartender.

Why does a public servant, paid by tax dollars, spend hours talking to one woman on a bridge, no matter how unproductive, no matter how annoying that woman?

We value life, it seems. Isn't that funny? We value life.