By Jack Moran, The Register-Guard, Published: (Wednesday, Sep 21, 2011 05:01AM) Today Chris Pietsch/The Register-Guard
This door to a Springfield condominium was broken down by Springfield police after one of the residents purchased a suicide kit to aid a story being written for The Register-Guard earlier this year.
SPRINGFIELD — The teletype message came Tuesday from the FBI, and it sounded urgent: A Springfield man had purchased a mail-order suicide kit and could be in danger.
Springfield police responded immediately to the man’s Harlow Road home. They spoke with the condominium complex’s manager, who told officers that he had seen the man carry a bag into his house earlier in the day, police Sgt. Richard Jones said.
Officers knocked on the man’s front door, but received no response. After conferring with a police captain who urged them to force their way into the home in case the man needed immediate help, officers kicked in the front door, Jones said.
They soon learned the man was not home.
He was at work — in The Register-Guard’s newsroom. And he said he’s not at all suicidal.