[dog barks]
-Hoffs' got half the department standing by.
-What do we need so much backup for anyhow?
-Because the last time they almost had him,
they chased him through six blocks of backyards.
He knows the neighborhood.
-I'm a little tired standing in these bushes.
-We know the house is empty.
The whole school knows the house is empty.
Empty houses are being robbed.
We're staying in the bushes.
-Wouldn't you rather be working on a real case?
-This is a real case.
20 houses, three weeks, $14,000.
[tires screech]
This kid's amazing.
[clatter]
-I'm amazed.
[dog barks]
Who is it?
HANSON: It's Walker Stevenson.
PENHALL: Walker?
I like Walker.
He's in my Bio class.
[glass shatters]
-Uh, I don't remember this being part of the MO, isn't it?
He's supposed to be wearing some sort of black outfit
and slithering under the window?
[clatters]
This guy's the worst burglar I've ever seen.
He's drunk--
HANSON: --hammered--
PENHALL: --pickled--
HANSON: --to the gills.
[rock music blares]
I think this is our man.
-No.
I don't think this man is a cat burglar.
And somehow, I don't think the man
that we're waiting for is going to come by now.
HANSON: Yeah.
-Are we blowing?
-We're blowing.
Iok, we got an unexpected guest.
He's yours.
It's too bad, I kind of liked Walker.
-Yeah, me too.
He's in my Bio class.
-Let's go.
IOKI: Take him in.
-Let go off me!
Let me go!
You're going to ruin everything!
-Settle down.
-Let me go!
Let, ugh, ugh.
-You're under arrest!
-[grunts]
Ugh!
Ugh.
-Hey, enough out of you!
-All right, you have a party.
From what I heard, you're not a great party.
A party of one.
But he doesn't invite his buddies?
This hurts.
-Flake off, Isley.
-Diana, your brother's being mean to me.
-Will you leave him alone?
He spent the night in jail.
-That is what prison can do to a man.
Just uses up all the good inside him.
-You can all drop dead.
-I don't know.
I don't think anybody here strikes me as the cat burglar
type, you know?
-I still think we've been set up.
-Are you kidding?
Been at this school for three weeks, staking out houses.
This kid, he just stumbles in and messes up the whole thing.
Walker is whack.
He ain't no cat burglar.
-Yo, Higgins.
-Hey, guys.
-Hey.
-Hey, man.
-Walker, how are you doing?
Look, I've been to jail three times.
It's no big deal.
-Who the hell told you anyhow?
-It's common knowledge.
Look, the worst you're going to get is six months probation,
maybe some family counseling.
It's nothing.
What the hell were you doing there?
-It's nothing.
Nothing!
You don't get it.
I'm totally screwed, no matter what I do.
-I didn't mean to ruin his lunch.
-Oh, you can't ruin his lunch.
-[chuckles]
-He won't even talk to me.
He's-- well, things are really bad for him right now.
-Yeah, no kidding.
-You really been to jail?
-Yeah.
-You didn't bring us anything?
An ashtray, a T-shirt, or license plate?
Just what kind are you?
-Well, maybe the next time I go to jail,
you guys can go with me.
-We're going about this all wrong.
Maybe we should check class schedules.
-Huh?
-Well, maybe while we're in, uh, English,
and while he's in Cat Burglary 101.
-Maybe.
-Fuller on line 3.
You, uh, better talk to him.
-Hanson.
-Hey, Captain, what's up?
-Walker Stevenson, the kid who stumbled into your stakeout?
-Yeah?
-They just found him in his living room.
There was a hunting rifle between his knees
and a note on the table.
He killed himself.
THEME SONG: We never thought of finding
a place where we belong.
Don't have to stand alone, we'll never let you fall.
Don't need permission to decide what you believe.
Ooh!
Say, jump!
Down on Jump Street.
Say, jump!
Down on Jump Street.
Your friends will be there when your back is to the wall.
You'll find you'll need us 'cause there's no one else
to call.
When it is hopeless, a decision is what you'll need.
You better get ready to-- be ready to jump!
"21 Jump Street"!
-It's not the way it works, Peter.
-What do you mean?
Why not?
The flag should be lowered to half-mast.
-I'm sorry, Peter.
-[sighs]
I don't get it.
-That's for heroes.
COUNSELOR: What do you do about death?
What do you do when a friend takes his own life.
-Start by leaving the flag up.
That's the first part.
-No matter what you may have known about Walker Stevenson,
you cannot hold yourself responsible for what happened.
-You see?
Walker is responsible for making me sit through this crap.
-5,000 young people will commit suicide this year.
Half a million will try.
Half a million.
Some of you in this room have tried, will try again.
I hope to God you fail.
Very few people really want to die.
They're the exceptions.
Most want help.
They're faced with problems they don't know how to solve.
It's not like your friend was hit by a car.
I mean, he made this decision.
Now, maybe you feel like, uh, like he told you
all you weren't good enough, and left.
Maybe you're pissed off.
You know, the English, 100 years ago,
had laws dealing with suicides.
The body was dragged through the street,
naked, and buried at a crossroads with a stake
through its heart.
How dare someone reject life.
-Yeah.
-It's OK to talk about it.
It's OK to be pissed off.
It's OK to be mad!
And you know what?
It's OK to mourn for your friend.
Look, I'm going to be around for the next couple of days
to talk to anyone who wants to talk to me.
-Why does a 16-year-old kid kill himself?
What could be so wrong at 16?
-There's not some easy answer I can give you.
-I'm not looking for an easy answer.
I keep thinking that I'm the one who pushed him over.
-Do you really believe that?
-[sighs]
-What is it you want me to say, Tom?
-How am I was supposed to do my job?
We bust kids all the time.
They don't go around killing themselves.
And I can't go around worrying about the next kid I bust
is going to put a hunting rifle into his mouth--
-Look, Hanson--
---or hang himself in his parents' backyard.
---I'm not fighting you.
-I know you're not!
I'm sorry.
But until I get why this kid died-- [sighs]
I kind of feel like I helped kill him.
I don't understand this thing.
These are decent kids at this school.
You know, they're not too rich.
They're not too poor.
They're not too anything.
It's like-- it's like All-American high.
You know, some of them do drugs, some of them
drink, some of them break into each other's homes.
Most of them just grow up.
What place did this kid get himself
into when he thought that suicide made sense?
[bangs on door]
PENHALL: OK, OK, I'm coming!
-I got it.
Hi, Tom.
Oh, wow, you look nice.
-Thank you.
-He's all yours.
-Is he OK?
Not lately.
PENHALL: What's that mean?
-Hey!
-What?
-You're not dressed.
-What am I?
Boxing in the nude?
What are you dressed like that for?
-I'm going to a funeral, so are you.
-Yeah, who died?
-Walker Stevenson.
-Uh, come on.
Give me a break.
-Uh, I think these are people we know.
--[sighs] School's out for the day.
I'm off.
-What's your problem?
-I ain't got no problem.
I like the kid.
Here, toss this on the grave for me.
-Wow.
[door closes]
MAN [VOICEOVER]: "On April 22, 1988 at approximately 13:23,
Officer Scott Gilmore was dispatched
to 1592 Geffen Lane, in reference to a dead body.
Upon arrival at the residence, I was
advised by Mrs. Carlota Gutierrez, a domestic employed
by the residents of the house, Mr. And Mrs. Tony Stevenson,
that the victim had shot himself in the head.
Upon entering the residence, the subject
was found in the right-hand side of the living
room, seated in an armchair.
He had a .30-06 bolt-action hunting rifle propped between
his legs.
The boy was wearing blue jeans and dark-colored T-shirt.
There was a great deal of blood.
And apparently, the bullet had exited
through the back of the head.
Bits of brain tissue were on a panel of the wall
directly behind the deceased.
Although he was, to the best of my expertise,
dead at this time, paramedics were called in.
They arrived at approximately 13:41
and declared the subject dead as well.
A perimeter was set up and the crime scene isolated."
-"The detectives of the 34th then took the command
of the investigation.
Submitted April 23, 1988.
Badge number 12237."
[sighs]
COUNSELOR: This note's pretty standard.
"I hate all this.
All my love."
Yeah.
OK, I'm late.
What's this?
I thought we were supposed to be undercover.
-He's a doctor.
I asked him here.
COUNSELOR: "Problems beyond" and "tried everything.
Seems like the only way."
A lot of them read like this.
See?
Part of them wants to die, part of them wants to live.
-Yeah, except the part of them that wanted to die
used the hunting rifle.
-Yeah, well, some people don't want to screw up one more time.
And some people set themselves up to be found in time.
And it's just the more obvious cry out for help.
-Yeah, but he wasn't crying out for help.
He killed himself.
Why?
-He was a loser, that's why.
COUNSELOR: Look, we're talking about the second leading
cause of death among adolescents.
More kids kill themselves than die of cancer.
Trouble at home, relationships, school problems, drugs
and alcohol, getting in trouble with the law.
They end up alienating themselves.
[sighs] A sudden impulsive act, something
as permanent as a gun that's lying around the house.
He had a problem.
And he felt that that was the only way to solve it.
-Then he was wrong.
-Yeah, well, we know that.
But look, when kids start to develop identities,
sometimes they get real confused along the way.
[sighs]
I just lost a 15-year-old girl who
overdosed on a whole bottle of antidepressants.
-She killed herself on antidepressants?
What we did she do?
Chuckle herself to death?
OK, that wasn't funny.
-I never thought of it that way.
-Oh, yeah.
And she's so happy, she exploded.
-Are you done?
-Ah, ha-ha-ha, boom!
-Shut up!
-Sorry, he's got kind of strange sense of humor.
-Yeah, it's not funny.
That's what's strange about it.
-[sighs]
-Hi, Doug.
-Hey, have you ever thought about killing yourself?
-Seriously?
-No, no, no.
Not, not, uh, think about it seriously.
But seriously, have you ever thought about it?
-Well, of course.
I mean, everybody thinks about it.
-Not me.
Are you home, Dorothy?
-I'm in here!
-Hey, I got this joke.
It's a great joke.
-Doug, I'm busy.
-Oh, come on.
Come on.
Come on, man.
Just sit down and listen, OK?
-OK, fine.
-Um, OK, uh, this guy, he's been going
to a psychiatrist for years, right?
And, uh, one day, he walks in and he says,
Doc, I've given it a lot of thought.
And it's not your fault, but I'm going to myself.
I don't want you try to stop me.
I just want you to know, OK.
So the doc says, all right, all right, I can respect that.
But there's just one thing I want you to do for me.
The circus is in town, and the world's greatest clown,
Grimaldi, is going to be there.
He's funny.
He's-- well, he's amazing.
All I want you to do is go to the circus.
And if you still want to kill yourself
even after seeing Grimaldi, then OK, I won't try to stop you.
So then, the guy says, but Doc, I'm Grimaldi.
-That's it?
-Yeah.
-Doug, that wasn't funny.
-Don't you get it?
-I thought it was going to be a joke.
-You don't get it?
I can't believe you don't get it.
-Of course, I get it, Doug.
But you said it was going to be a joke.
And that wasn't funny.
-You never get any of my jokes.
-That's not true.
I get lots of your jokes.
-But you don't think I'm funny.
-Doug.
-No, no, you got no sense of humor.
-Doug!
-You know why you got no sense of humor?
Because you need a little intelligence
to understand humor.
-Doug!
-What?
-Take that back.
-Take what back?
-You said I was stupid.
Take it back.
-I won't.
It's true.
-You know, you've been a real pain
in the ass these last couple of days!
-[sighs] It was just a joke!
[doorbell rings]
[dance music]
-Did Walker say anything to you beforehand?
-Like what?
-You were always talking to him, like trying
to be his new friend.
Did he say anything?
-No.
-Damn it.
He didn't even talk to me.
-What do you want, after Dittmar and Beckman?
I mean, it's not that surprising.
-Who's Dittmar and Beckman?
-Johnny Dittmar and Roger Beckman.
They were before you came to town.
They died, too.
-They?
-Yeah, committed suicide, went sideways, depends who you ask.
But they're dead.
-Beckman didn't kill himself.
He went to reform school.
-[snickers]
-Was Dittmar a friend of Walker's?
-He was lots of people's friends.
Dittmar was incredibly cool.
-How did he die?
-Got hit by a train.
They said it was an accident.
Nah, I think he was "accidentally"
lying on the railroad tracks.
Great.
-I thought his car got hit.
-[scoffs] I love these rumors.
Uh, I heard he was carried away by a giant vulture.
-Give me a break.
-Like the tattoo?
-Yes, yes, it's good.
-Oh, I had this day when nothing was working.
You know, it just completely sucked.
I was so numb, I cut myself to see if I would bleed.
It wasn't real when I did it.
It was like watching myself on TV.
-Hey, remember Beckman?
-Yeah.
Hey, did you know he went to reform school?
-Yeah, of course.
-Huh?
Yeah, well, now I find out he got out.
Joined the Navy.
He's living in Norfolk, man.
He runs a crane.
He's got a house.
He's married.
He's married!
Can you believe that?
He's having a great time.
-A lot of people I know have tried it
or contemplated it one time.
-Diana has.
Keith has.
-I don't get it.
-It's like giving your folks notice.
I'm not kidding.
I'm not taking any more this crap.
It's not about killing yourself.
It's about knowing what it would be like.
-People tell you you're a loser long enough,
you begin to believe it.
-I could never kill myself.
But sometimes, I just get really drunk and drive crazy.
I figure I'll let fate decide.
-Well, maybe he was a guy who couldn't face it.
He was a guy who just wimped out.
-Come on.
-What?
Huh!
-Come on!
-Hey!
-If you don't have anything decent to say, then shut
your mouth, you drink your beer, or you leave.
OK?
-Yeah?
-Yeah.
-I don't want to be here anyway.
[sighs]
[rock music]
-There's something really wrong here.
Or somebody is lying to us.
There was another kid who killed himself at Taft six weeks ago--
Johnny Dittmar.
-Kid walked in front of a train?
-Yeah.
And it wasn't reported as a suicide either.
Why not?
-Because no one wants to admit that suicide exists.
The parents lie, the medical examiner, even the cops.
They want to spare themselves the pain, the humiliation.
You know, they say suicide is the second leading
cause of death among adolescents.
The first is accidents, like being
hit by a train or single-passenger auto
fatalities.
All the drug and alcohol-related cases, suicide
might very well be number 1.
-Yeah.
I can remember a time when we would have written Walker off
as a hunting accident.
Never mind the fact he was in the living room.
-You know, we may be looking at kids
who've been influenced by more than one death.
-You're saying this is contagious?
-Sometimes.
-Wait a minute.
I-- I don't get it.
-Among young people, a suicide can open the door for others
to follow.
A kind of horrible example.
See, there's a spread of depression
following the first death.
Then if you're already unhappy, when someone you know
can't hack it, it doesn't seem so bad to you.
So yes, in a way, if ignored, repressed, it is contagious.
-I was at this party last night.
Bizarre death tattoos.
Even a couple of kids with superficial wrist scars,
like some kind of badge.
-Right.
The scars, the tattoos.
You see, you mark yourself up.
You make yourself an object.
You're less than a person.
But it's also a way for the group
to draw together, a way to belong to each other.
And in the end, it's-- it's our relationships that keeps us all
alive.
-Half of them sound like they could really do it.
What the hell am I supposed to do?
-Don't avoid the subject.
Don't be afraid to talk about suicide directly.
You're not going to put ideas in anyone's head.
Listen in.
And if they need it, get them to someone who can help.
-Isn't there something I'm supposed
to be able to look for?
You know, like warning signs and all that?
-Hostile behavior, mood swings, promiscuity, drug and alcohol
abuse, alienation among their friends.
-Great.
That sounds like just being a teenager.
-Huh, not everyone.
But it does kind of tell you something, doesn't it?
Just listen.
Most of the time, just having a friend who can listen
is enough.
-Nice of you to come to work, Doug.
-Oh, were we discussing the case,
talking about the student cat burglar?
Suicide High ain't no case.
And I ain't working on it no more.
-You're on it until I say you're not on it.
-Yeah, well, uh, last night I caught the kid
who's been breaking into all those house
in a stolen goods sting operation.
He just transferred out of Taft.
That's how come we missed him.
He confessed.
There is no case.
I am caught up with all my paperwork.
I'd like a personal day, unless of course, I
have any official police business I have to attend to.
-I hate him.
I hate him for leaving us.
I hate him for going away.
Don't you hate him?
-No, I just miss him.
-I don't miss him at all.
He did it because he hated us.
He did, you know.
He hated us.
-Mitchell!
-If he were here right now, I'd kick his ass for what he did.
I would.
-Guys.
-Hey, what's up?
-Hey, Tom, you missed it.
Instead of math class, we had another morning
on why we shouldn't kill ourselves.
PETER: Yeah, and there was homework.
We have to stay alive until tomorrow.
Sort of a pass/fail assignment. [chuckles]
-You know, I can never kill myself.
I mean, who would look after my dog?
-There's nothing worth looking forward to.
I mean, I've already done every drug
there is, except for heroin.
That's about it.
I've been drunk so many times.
-And you've done every guy I know.
-I haven't done you.
And I never will.
So eat your heart out, Keith.
-[chuckles]
-Anyway, I have done most of the ones I wanted to.
And that wasn't even that great.
So what's there to look forward to?
-I'm going to pass science.
I could end up passing all my classes.
And then my parents promised to loan me money for a car.
It could be a great summer.
VICKIE: We came here from Norwood.
Um, that was before my father was promoted.
You know it was better when we were poor?
I mean, when we weren't poor "poor."
But it was better.
I hate this school.
I hate this place.
-Those other kids who died, why didn't the school cop to it?
-They've been expelled already.
They didn't count.
PETER: That's the attitude around here, man.
If you're not up to par, they just expel you.
There is no room for slackers.
DIANA: My dad put in for a transfer.
He really wants to move away from here.
KEITH: Yeah, my parents are going out of town.
I'm going to have a massive party.
So it would be a waste to kill yourself before that.
-I don't know, it's like I fall in love with guys
over and over.
And they leave me over and over.
[chuckles ]
I'm not even going to get anywhere.
I mean, everybody else has plans.
It's just really been pointless lately.
I feel like I'm a loser.
-Yeah, well, I've been there, too, Vickie.
Look, I don't know what to tell you except it doesn't last.
-I have OD'd on stuff before.
Um, tranqs, Valium, aspirin.
-Don't you have anything you want to do?
Something to look forward to?
That's what I think about.
-Getting out of here, one way or another.
-Really, that's it?
Just nothing at all?
-Nope.
Um, you know, I-- I thought I wanted to talk to you.
But I don't think so anymore.
I don't even know you, Tom.
-Could you talk to Rachel?
-Huh, she won't even get it.
-What about a counselor or a nurse?
-They all hate me!
They think I'm a loser, too!
-Well, I don't hate you, Vickie.
And I don't think you're a loser.
Listen, all I've been able to think about lately is suicide.
I mean, maybe not mine.
I didn't want anybody to know.
But, uh, I've been talking with that doctor guy a lot.
And I'm feeling much better.
He's explained a bunch of stuff to me.
He made a lot of sense.
-How could he know anything?
-Yo, Doc.
-Hey, Tommy.
-Do you, uh, got a minute for a friend?
-Absolutely.
-Hi.
-Hey.
[rock music]
[opera music]
[bangs on door]
-[sighs]
-Hey.
What's this?
-It's opera.
What's it sound like?
-Opera?
I was in the neighborhood, you know.
-Yeah?
-All right, I came over to tell you that you were wrong
and that you're being a jerk.
-Wow!
You should have phoned.
I could have hung up on you instead
of having to throw you out.
-You know, you got a problem.
You've got a big problem!
You're self-centered.
You don't care about anybody but Doug Penhall.
I had a chance to help somebody who was hurting.
And I did.
-Whoop-dee-doo.
-You sat around listening to tapes.
You don't even know what's going on!
-Hey, I know more about suicide than you ever will.
-You know more about making stupid jokes.
That's about it.
-[scoffs]
-[SHOUTS] What is wrong with you?
-Hey, my mother killed herself when I was six!
I thought about suicide every moment of every day since then.
All I knew was that something really horrible
had happened to my mother.
Police were there.
I was six.
I thought they were taking her to jail.
I kept walking around the day of the funeral
with my shoes untied.
And I won't let nobody tie them.
My mom used to tie them.
And, uh, even as I was growing up,
I used to not want to come home.
I used to-- I used to stay in the playground
till it got dark because didn't want to come home and see
that she wasn't there.
[sighs]
And, um, my father, he used to have to come and get me.
My father, he had been a priest.
So he couldn't kill himself.
Instead, he just drank himself to death.
-I'm really sorry, Doug.
-No.
Hey, anyhow, I tie my own shoes now every morning.
Sometimes in the day, too.
-[chuckles]
-I never really brought this up before.
I wanted to tell you.
I'm sorry.
It's just been real hard.
-Uh.
[sighs]
FULLER: Hanson.
-Hey, coach.
-Things OK?
-This Walker thing.
It's like one of those slot machines in Las Vegas.
It's a one in a million chance that all the wrong things
are going to line up for you.
You know, like seven emotions.
Seven things in your life that seemed like more than you
can handle.
I guess if you can take one sad thing away from someone,
they're safe.
So it ain't so bad.
-Been doing some thinking, huh?
-Yeah.
The funny thing is I thought it was so important that I
had to know why Walker died.
But I'm never going to know.
Never.
-Are you going to be able to live with it?
-Yeah.
The best I'm going to know is that I'm never going to know.
That's going to have to be OK.
-Tom.
Captain.
-Hey, Dorothy.
-Yeah.
Have you seen Doug?
-Uh, no.
-Well, it's just that he and I kind of got in this fight,
and then I went away.
And then he didn't call.
Then I called and no one answered.
Then I went home, and he wasn't there.
I don't know where he is.
Then I called here.
And they said he was around or on a case.
He didn't say anything to me.
It's not like him.
[sighs] God, he'd kill me if he found that I came here.
But, uh, I know everywhere else he goes, but I
went to those places already.
-You're a hard man to find, Doug.
Some people are looking for you.
-Yeah?
-People like Dorothy.
You ought to call her.
She's worried about you.
-There's something I want to tell you.
I tried to kill myself when I was eight years old.
I drank a bottle of vanilla extract.
-That's kind of cute.
-Well, I didn't mean for it to be cute.
I meant to kill myself.
My mother was an alcoholic.
And she was really hard to have around, you know, even when
I was six.
It was easier when she was gone.
I felt so incredibly guilty after I realized that.
I was-- it was-- it was like I killed her, like I sent her
away, like she left because I hadn't loved her enough.
Uh, she thought I didn't love her.
-Doug, you were six years old.
-You do a lot of funny stuff when people leave you.
You make a lot of deals with God.
I used to eat all my vegetables because I
knew that's what my mother wanted
and that that will make her happy up in heaven.
And I didn't talk to my father for months
because I thought that will bring her back.
I had this other deal with God that, uh,
if I was a real good boy, then she'd come back.
She didn't come back.
I was kind of difficult for a while-- for about,
uh, some 20-odd years. [chuckles]
[sighs] I don't know.
Maybe that's my excuse for acting like I'm six sometimes,
you know.
-I'm sorry.
-Uh, what are you sorry for?
-I'm your friend.
I should have seen your pain.
-Oh, OK.
So maybe it's all right if I act obnoxious sometimes, right?
-No.
[both chuckle]
You seen anybody about this?
-Sh-- I don't need to see nobody about this.
-Are you sure?
-I dealt with this a long time ago.
I just thought this might help you.
Jeez, I don't know.
You don't like my stories.
You don't like the music I listen to.
Whew.
Hey, you got the weebles to ride with me in this stuff?
Come on.
You got to help eat Dorothy's terrible meatballs.
-Hey.
-Hey, Tom.
-I'm sorry about your brother.
-I still live with it day to day,
but it's-- it's going all right.
[sighs]
I guess that's all I have to say.
Does anyone else have anything tonight?
MAN: Oh, yeah, I want to talk.
-What's your name?
-Doug.
My mother killed herself when I was six.
THEME SONG: Jump!
Jump!
[typing]