The entrance to the beach at the end of Peter’s Pond Lane in Sagaponack was closed late Wednesday as investigators from the Suffolk County Police Homicide Department investigated circumstances around the death of a 60-year-old Sag Harbor man who was found tumbling in the surf.
According to Homicide Det. Sgt. Fandrey, a jogger discovered the body, fully clothed on the beach at around 3:30 in the afternoon. The victim of an apparent suicide, said police, who is believed to have succumbed to a self inflicted gunshot wound, which investigators believe had occurred earlier in the afternoon. The male was taken to the Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s Office in Hauppauge for further examination. The family of the deceased was notified, but police wouldn’t disclose the deceased name.
What was the name of the man found in the surf in Sagaponack.? A reporter should find out and report it, dispassionately and without bias. It is called the news.
Most newspapers do not report the name of victims of suicide unless they are public figures.
Then why report the story at all? As reported, all this story does is raise the concern of any reader who may know a 60 year old man who happens to frequent that beach. This is starting to look like a coverup. The police have “ruled” this man’s death as a suicide without benefit of a forensic analysis and you accept this? As a reporter, your job is to report the facts (Who, What, When, Where, Why), not revise, omit, or craft the story to fit some sense of what is “proper”. And where do you get the idea that “public” figures get treated differently from “private” figures? And, who decides who is public or private?
Sorry to be so critical of your story, but in recent years, it seems that the media has taken it upon itself to report the news as it sees fit, letting it’s political views bias their reporting.
Three thoughts:
Shielding the identities of deaths by suicide as a mark of respect for the deceased and the family, may only further stigmatize an event whose frequency might be reduced through more open discusion and understanding. It is right to feel sadness about suicide but not shame or embarrassment.
If the identities of public figures who have committed suicide are reported, didn’t this person become a public figure when he chose a public place for his death ?
With a murder in North Haven still unsolved and under reported after over a year has gone by, don’t the press and the public have a right to question the ability of our local police forces to handle this type of event which is not to question at all, the fine work they do on less complicated cases ?
Back to Tim – If this person made the suicide public by doing so in a public – then I agree. I would like his name.
It’s October 24th and no further word on the Sagaponack suicide… curious…