For the fourth time in less than a year, Caltrain is investigating an apparent suicide on the tracks near Gunn High School.
A Caltrain spokesperson says the victim is a teenage boy. He died on the tracks Monday evening within a few yards of three other suicides of Gunn students. A source told NBC Bay Area he was a student at Gunn.
Southbound train 194 struck and killed the teen between at E. Meadows Drive and E. Charleston Road at around 10:50 p.m., Caltrain spokeswoman Christine Dunn said.
The most recent suicide was Aug. 22 when a 13-year-old girl, an incoming Gunn freshman, was struck and killed.
Officially, Caltrain is still trying to confirm the latest death as a suicide.
"We owe it to the victim as well as to the community to do a complete and thorough investigation before we release any information," Chistine Dunn said.
Caltrain has spent more than $17 million for pedestrian gates, fencing and signs to improve safety at their street crossings and help keep people off the tracks.
In addition to the actual physical changes at the tracks, there's also a focus on mental health as a result of the student suicides.
Two local meetings on the topic are planned for Wednesday, one facilitated by Caltrain in which community leaders and local mental health professionals will discuss the issue. Participants will include representatives from the Palo Alto Unified School District, the San Mateo County Health Department and Peninsula Health Care District, and various police departments.
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That meeting, scheduled for Wednesday morning, is not open to the public.
A separate, public meeting is planned for 7 p.m. at the Cubberley Community Center and will feature a panel of middle and high school students and talks by specialists in child in adolescent psychology from Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.
The community center is located at 4000 Middlefield Road. The event includes a resource fair that begins at 6:30 p.m.
Both meetings were in the works prior to Monday's death.
Dunn said she does not yet know whether there are plans to increase patrols at the crossing but said transit police patrol regularly and may have stopped a number of would-be suicides this year.
"Our transit police have been able to successfully intervene more than 12 times since the beginning of the year, taking people who were suicidal off the right-of-way," Dunn said.
Caltrain contracts with the San Mateo County sheriff's office, which provides a team dedicated to policing the train tracks.
Anyone seeking help or counseling services can call Adolescent Counseling Services at (650) 424-0852. The Palo Alto organization contracts with the Palo Alto Unified School District to provide a counseling presence at middle and high schools in the district.
Teens can also call a health, relationship, crisis, and information referral line at (888) 247-7717. The dispatch service directly connects the caller to needed services.
Another local organization, Kara, provides grief support for adults and teens. Kara has also worked with the PAUSD to provide counseling at the schools and can be reached at (650) 321-5272.
For immediate help, especially outside of daytime hours, Santa Clara County operates a 24-hour suicide and crisis hotline. Residents in the north county can call (650) 494-8420, central county residents can call (408) 279-3312, and south county residents can call (408) 683-2482.
Caltrain says more than half of the death on its tracks in the last six years were suicides.
Investigators have not released the name or the age of the person who died Monday night.
Bay City News contributed to this report.
