Editor’s note: Resources for any person who is feeling depressed, troubled or suicidal are listed at the bottom of this article.
The vast majority of youth suicides in Palo Alto take place at train crossings, making the city an outlier among jurisdictions along the Caltrain corridor in Santa Clara County, according to coroner data.
As the city continues to debate the closure of the Churchill Avenue crossing where a teenage girl died by suicide earlier this year, the data shows that the train is the leading means of suicide among the city’s young people — but not at Churchill specifically. Palo Alto is currently in the midst of another “suicide cluster,” referring to a period in which multiple people die by suicide within a short time frame. Leading mental health experts say that restricting access to lethal means is a proven strategy to reduce suicide…