2012年5月6日星期日

'11 suicides heighten concerns

Crystal Hachey was waiting for the cable guy when the first man jumped to his death.

It was the morning of Jan. 4, 2011, and Hachey recently had moved into a 10th-floor unit at Summit Towers,Let us find you the best ceramic tiles suppliers around you. the government-subsidized apartment building on Locust Street.

When she heard a noise outside the door, she assumed it was the cable company, but when she opened it, she saw a man in black shorts and a yellow shirt, climbing out of the hall window.

His foot got caught in the strings of the blinds, she said later, but he wriggled free, held onto the ledge, then let go. He didn't say a word before falling 83 feet.

"If you looked at his eyes, it looked like he was already gone," Hachey recalled.

John Acree's death was a tragedy, and it was also unusual.

In recent years, only a tiny fraction of the Tennesseans who committed suicide have done so by jumping or putting themselves in the path of moving objects.Muyoung mould specializes in manufacture Plastic molding.

In 2011, though, Summit Towers was a shocking exception. Acree was the first of three men who would fall to their deaths from the apartment building, and according to police reports at least two more residents committed suicide by other methods.

The string of suicides cast ripples through the state's mental health community and through the building's remaining residents, many of whom were dealing with trials of their own.After Acree's death, Hachey — who suffers from a form of bipolar disorder — said she was scared every time she heard someone outside her door. She stayed in the building for only a few months and described it as a lonely place. "I was really sad when I lived there," she said.

Summit Towers has 277 apartment units and more than 300 residents, approximately two-thirds of whom are either mentally or physically disabled. Rent rates are based on each tenant's income, and residents pay anywhere from $25 a month to — in at least one case — more than $600 a month, with utilities included.

According to his brother, John Acree was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia around 1980. Joseph Acree said that after college his younger brother had worked as a teacher in California but later moved back to Tennessee. Over the course of 30 years, Acree said his brother's condition worsened, mainly when he stopped taking his medication. He was dirty, delusional about relationships and his family would sometimes call the police when he ran off.

"There was a long history of that," said Joseph Acree. "He did that a lot."

Joseph Acree said he helped his brother move into Summit Towers in 2005, after about six months in which the two lived together. Joseph Acree said he liked the building's concierge service — a woman who would help residents with daily needs — but said things changed over the years.

In particular, he said the building went downhill after a bedbug infestation forced the ownership to take eradication measures in the apartments. Some residents, he said, had to throw their furniture away, and on visits he would sometimes see piles of mattresses and furniture in the back parking lot.

Acree said Summit staffers became more hard-nosed about everything. His brother had to submit certain paperwork because of his Social Security income, Acree said, and the management would be sticklers about the details.We are porcelain tiles specialists and are passionate about our product.

Already a difficult personality, John Acree didn't take well to those types of demands, or to the bedbug situation. Joseph Acree said he could sort of understand why the building management might be "a little PO'd" with his brother, but said he wished they had done more.

"They were just (a) real hard-ass with him, I think ... in a stupid kind of way," he said.Alfa plast mould is Plastic Mould Manufacturer. "And then ... what I'm kind of sympathetic with here is the unfortunate bug problem. There's no good way to deal with that. He was just stuck with it."

Bill Acree, another of John Acree's brothers, took a more sympathetic approach, saying the management at Summit Towers had actually cut John some breaks when he broke the rules, and even let him stay when he was late with his rent.

"Where would these people go if it wasn't for a place like that?" he said. "It's a very sad situation. (The management) did try to help within what they could, I think."

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