Members of the NYPD’s elite Emergency Services Unit helped save a distraught man who was threatening to jump from the observation deck roof at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, home to NBC, in Manhattan 8/10. Cops responded to the scene at about 3:45 p.m. to find 23-year-old Jorge Ruiz of Las Vegas sitting on the ledge of a concrete pillar in the southeast corner of the 70th floor deck, the NYPD said.
Police Ruiz climbed over a 5-foot-high glass partition of the Top of the Rock Observation Deck. They say he sat on a concrete pillar with his legs dangling over the side and threatened to jump.
Ruiz later told police he was upset over a book he wrote that wasn’t going to be published.
The Emergency Service Unit was able to convince him to surrender after about 20 minutes. Many NBC employees frantically watched Ruiz sit on the ledge of the building on a closed circuit TV in the building.
Video of the dramatic scene shows one officer, wearing a harness, jump from one ledge onto another and grab the man.
Neither the man nor the cops were hurt, police said.
Medics brought the man to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric observation, the NYPD said.
