Dispatch from the 7th Level of Hell

The report of Fairfax, Va., police officer Tracy Perkins is written in clean, clinical prose: “At approximately 1500 hours on Aug. 29, Katie Meeks, a 19-year-old white Fairfax female, attempted suicide by jumping from the parking structure of the Annandale NOVA campus. Attempt was thwarted by myself and three other Fairfax officers. Subject was taken into custody, processed according to procedure and remanded to a local adult mental facility. A court date to judge her mental stability is set for Aug. 31.”

Katie is my daughter. She is alive today through the heroic action of four Fairfax police officers who literally snatched her from death’s grasp as she attempted to leap from the top of a six-story parking lot onto the concrete pavement below. Just 10 minutes before she made the attempt she had called 911 to leave a verbal suicide note; she told the operator she intended to kill herself by jumping off the ledge and would she “please be sure to tell my mom and dad that I love them.” The operator pinged her phone for a location, alerted the local police station, which is a mere half mile away from the community college campus where she stood, and they responded in record time to save her life.

My life has now officially entered the seventh level of Hell. You see, three years ago tomorrow, on Aug. 31, Torrey, my 31-year-old second son, took his own life by…