Man Leaps to Death From Electric Tower

Despite hours of negotiations, a 32-year-old Tarzana man leaped to his death from a 230-foot power pylon early Friday morning in an incident that shut down the Foothill Freeway.

The coroner’s office identified the man as Noureddine Affane, a native of Morocco.

Through a loudspeaker on top of a patrol car, the LAPD’s crisis negotiators tried to persuade Affane to climb down from the tower. Eventually, police said they got him to talk but freeway traffic made it impossible to hear Affane from his perch.

Police blocked the Foothill Freeway from its junction with the Ronald Reagan Freeway to the 210’s Osborne Street exit for seven hours.

Children who live in the nearby Foothill Palms trailer park saw Affane scaling rungs built into the side of the steel tower at about 4 p.m. The tower, which holds high voltage lines, is situated behind the trailer park in a nursery off Terra Bella Street.

“I was praying that he wouldn’t jump down,” said 7-year-old George Morales.

“All the kids were screaming at him to get down because he could get hurt,” said George’s uncle, Tony Morales, 40.

Los Angeles Police Lt. Jeff Hulet said Affane became increasingly agitated as the night wore on.

“After seven hours of negotiations it became clear that we were not making any headway,” said Hulet. “There were two psychiatrists on the scene and their assessment was that his mental state was deteriorating.”

At about 2:10 a.m. he asked for five minutes of silence so he could prepare to die, police said. A few moments later he walked off a crossbeam on the tower “with a slight push of his legs,” said Hulet. He was killed instantly.