1 in 15 :

Desperation forced a horrific decision (Dennis Cauchon and Martha T. Moore, 9/03/02, USA TODAY)

At first, it seemed like debris. Large objects were falling from the top of the World Trade Center's north tower, just a few minutes after American Airlines Flight 11 hit.

''It took three or four to realize: They were people,'' says James Logozzo, who had gathered with co-workers in a Morgan Stanley boardroom on the 72nd floor of the south tower, just 120 feet away from the north tower. ''Then this one woman fell.''

She fell closer to the south tower, he recalls. Logozzo saw her face. She had dark hair and olive skin, a white blouse and black skirt. She fell with her back to the ground, flat, staring up.

''The look on her face was shock. She wasn't screaming. It was slow motion. When she hit, there was nothing left,'' Logozzo says. [...]

The story of the victims who jumped to their deaths is the most sensitive aspect of the Sept. 11 tragedy. Photographs of people falling to their deaths shocked the nation. Most newspapers and magazines ran only one or two photos, then published no more. USA TODAY ran one photo Nov. 16.

Still, the images resonate. Many who survived or witnessed the attack say the sight of victims jumping is their most haunting memory of that day.

It was worse than people realize.

USA TODAY estimates that at least 200 people jumped to their deaths that morning, far more than can be seen in the photographs taken that morning.

There's an obvious potential for things like this and the Daniel Pearl video and even film of the crashes and building collapses themselves to be exploited for mere sensation. But there also seems to be a dangerous momentum building up in Europe, in Congress and in the Press to put this all behind us and forget about the war on terror. It seems, though many will understandably disagree, that it would be appropriate for the President to show us these scenes when he announces subsequent steps in the war, to remind us what the price of prior inaction was and why we fight now. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 4, 2002 7:40 PM