A 22-year-old killed himself at Metro’s Shady Grove station Monday evening by jumping off the seventh floor of a parking garage, the transit agency confirmed Tuesday.
Metro did not notify the media about the death, as it “had no effect on service,” according to Metro spokeswoman Cathy Asato. One entrance to the garage remained open during the police investigation and Red Line rail and bus service were not disrupted, she said.
It was the second major incident in three days that the agency did not share with the public. On Saturday, a maintenance vehicle carrying 20 workers slid on an icy rail into a truck on the Red Line between the Medical Center and Grosvenor-Strathmore stations, causing a chain reaction that damaged four trucks. No one was injured, but the agency did not alert the public.
It also failed to notify its safety oversight group within two hours, as required.
In Monday’s case, the Germantown man jumped from one of the parking garages around 7:30 p.m., Asato said. She declined to release the dead man’s name, citing a new Metro privacy policy.
A witness apparently saw him leap, she said. The Examiner learned about the case from a rider who saw the police investigation.
Monday’s suicide was the second in 2010, after last year’s unusual spate of nine suicides on the transit agency’s rail system. Typically most suicides on transit systems have occurred on the tracks, with people putting themselves in front of speeding trains.
Metro has been working on ways to stem the deaths, developing new training for employees and a public awareness campaign.
