A quick-thinking police officer used a Gamecocks football discussion to dissuade an apparently suicidal man from jumping off a highway overpass Thursday night, shows video captured on a Columbia Police Department body camera and obtained by The State newspaper.
The video shows the police beginning to approach the man, who is crying and seated on a guardrail overlooking South Carolina Highway 277.
Though most of the conversation from the subject on the guardrail is inaudible or garbled, the video clearly shows the officer, Master Patrol Officer Michael Blackmore, in several statements and questions discussing the man’s favorite football teams, the Gamecocks and the NFL’s Washington Redskins.