Man Clearing Snow Falls off IDS Roof and Dies
One of the two men clearing snow off a glass roof at the IDS Center slipped and fell five or six stories to his death, startribune.com reports.
The victim's name was not released and according to police this was a tragic accident, and no foul play was involved.
The man was clearing snow off the roof of the Crystal Court, a part of the tower. The Crystal Court contains a food court and retail shops. The man fell shortly before 2 p.m., through the ceiling of the Crystal Court.
The 51-story IDS center overlooks the Crystal Court. Also included in the court is a 105-foot ceiling to floor water fountain and a canopy of glass skylights.
According to police, and reported on pioneerpress.com, they blocked off the lower part of the Crystal Court and were in the process of the clearing the skyways entering the IDS Center. The police did not want the accident to be a public viewing.
The IDS tower is a city landmark and was built in 1972. It overlooks Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis's downtown major shopping area.
For this local story, I looked at the websites for the major two local papers, pioneerpress.com and startribune.com. The two stories were quite similar. Both stories contained exactly what happened and did not include the victim's name. They also both included past suicides that occurred at the IDS tower which I thought was interesting since this was not a suicide. The Star Tribune article was a little longer and contained more quotes whereas the Pioneer Press did not. The Pioneer Press just had quotes from Police Sergeant Garcia, whereas the Star Tribune had quotes from witnesses.