Poor L.A. Times reporter Martha Groves drew the short straw yesterday and got stuck with covering yet another Red Line attempted suicide story, this one at the North Hollywood Subway Station.
The Times’s policy is not to report successful Red Line suicides. Too depressing for their readers?
The rare unsuccessful suicide, however, gets reported…like this one.
Red Line suicides have become known as “Destination Suicides” – some people traveling long distances to meet their voluntary ends under the steel wheels of a preferred L.A. Subway car.
Like it or not, there is an online suicide community out there, deciding where to go to end their lives. They discuss the choices among themselves before making the final decision.
Internet suicide sites provide a free forum for discussing the pros and cons of various sites, worldwide, to kill yourself.
Then you decide where to off yourself.
The Red Line has become a very popular suicide destination since the subway first opened in 1990.
People come from allover the globe to kill themselves right there in underground L.A.
Case in point: A woman from Great Britain who threw herself in front of a speeding subway train at the same North Hollywood Station awhile back.
That incident turned out to be a would-be suicide. That is why the story was covered by the media.
The Red Line Subway platform definitely is the place to be seen…for the very last time.
There have been more than 30 successful suicides on the Red Line, a number that leads the nation.
United Riders of L.A. (URLA) asks Mayor Villaraigosa and the rest of the MTA Board to post signs at all subway station sites that discourage suicide and promote use of the local Suicide Watch hotline.
Mr. Walsh may be contacted at hollywoodhighlands.org
