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By KEVIN HOFFMAN [email protected]
Saturday, February 05, 2000 Page: 3A
WILKES-BARRE – As police and firefighters worked to recover the body of a
woman who committed suicide Thursday, WARM radio personality Kevin Lynn
complained about the traffic snarl her death caused and said, “I hope she’s a
jumper.”
The Wilkes-Barre police chief and the assistant director for a crisis
intervention hot line reacted Friday to Lynn’s statements, saying the radio
host went too far and acted insensitively.
Police Chief William Barrett said Lynn might feel differently about the
woman’s death if he had been at the scene with the family, or if he had known
the woman who had died.
“I have the utmost sympathy for the family. It’s difficult standing there
seeing that, and I’m sure it’s much more difficult for the husband, who was
standing nearby,” Barrett said.
Maryann Theresa Szczechowicz, 34, of Slocum Street in Swoyersville, was
pronounced dead at 5:05 p.m. Thursday of a suicide. Rescue workers believe she
jumped off the Veterans Memorial Bridge onto the ice-covered Susquehanna
River.
On his radio show Friday, Lynn continued to discuss the woman’s suicide. At
one point, he complained about the traffic tie-up caused when the bridge was
closed for traffic at about 4:25 p.m.
Lynn asked why the woman didn’t kill herself at home. “Why’d she have to
do it in public and inconvenience everybody else?”
Gary Smith, the assistant director of Help Line, a 24-hour information and
referral service and after-hours crisis intervention center, said that
although he recognizes Lynn’s right to free speech, he thinks Lynn’s comments
were out of line.
“How he can compare a suicide to inconvenience is just unbelievable,”
Smith said. “He has no idea what torment this person was going through that
would cause her to do this.”
Barrett and Smith were unaware of Lynn’s statements until a reporter called
them for comment Friday.
Lynn admitted Friday that his comments were insensitive, but said he feels
strongly about suicide and wanted to raise the issue of why the media often do
not report on suicides the way they do other deaths.
He stressed it is important to put his words in the proper context.
“I may have said that I hope she was dead, in the context that I wouldn’t
want a paramedic to risk his life to go down … to save someone who wants to
die,” Lynn told a reporter Friday.
Paul Ehlis, the general manager for WARM, said he didn’t hear what Lynn
said and would not comment on it until he could sit down with Lynn to talk
about it.
Ehlis said the radio station has guidelines for its radio hosts, but he
would not say whether Lynn’s statements fell within those guidelines.
“He is a talk show host. We do pay him to give his opinion,” Ehlis said.
“As is the case with any opinion … you’re always going to have people who
agree or disagree with the opinion, which is certainly their right.”
Barrett said there have been times in the past when a person who was
threatening to commit suicide was saved through police intervention. Some of
those people went on to lead healthy, happy lives, Barrett said.
“I’m not saying that we can save everybody,” Barrett said. “But in any
given instance we might be able to help somebody get back on the right
track.”
Call Hoffman at 829-7139.