KURTLAND DAVID JOHNSON On Friday, March 13, 2009, departed this life. Devoted husband of Yvette Thomas Johnson; beloved father of Kia; loving brother of Harold, Carlton and Diane. Also survived by many nieces, nephews, relatives and friends. Visitation Monday, March 23, 10 a.m. until time of funeral 11 a.m. at From the Heart Ministries, 4207 Norcross St. , Temple Hills, MD.

For others, if you're wondering, yes this thread mentions the name of the deceased. Out of respect for the family and accuracy, I withheld publication overnight until Metro released the name today.

I guess we were halfway in the station when we came to a complete stop. The lights went off and the driver came out looking visibly upset.

He told us to hang on a minute, pried one of the doors halfway open and crawled out. At this point, people were running up to the train yelling that a guy was hit and probably dead.

Some classless scumbag starts yelling to let him out and banging on the door, completely unconcerned with the fact that someone had probably just lost their life underneath our train.

After maybe 3-4 minutes, they let us out of the first car – prob only 10 of us. It seemed like all the other cars' doors were still shut and nobody knew what was going on.

There were several women on the platform explaining that a guy had jumped out in front and they were understandly distraught. We tried to locate the guy but nobody could see or hear anything. Soon, fire fighters began to come in and they ushered us out of the station due to "an emergency".

The metro employee at the top of the escalators told us a guy jumped in front and killed himself.

Very sad, rip.

Excellent reporting. Thank you.

In today's incident, it sounds like the person jumped right before the train came, so not sure if a detection system would always help, but the platform doors would and having both would be very helpful.

With platform doors, the trains would then always have to stop at the same spot on the platform, and there probably are other technical issues and budget issued, but there have been way too many incidents involving people struck by a train.

For any others reading, if you're looking for more coverage, DCist had the first links and photo this afternoon, and the Post's Get There blog has been quick on the station's reopening this evening. At this hour, WUSA has video from outside the station, including a clip of the Etter briefing I mentioned. The Washington City Paper and Washington Examiner both add a few details as well. WTTG has the Associated Press brief, as do WTOP, WJLA, The Washington Times, and NBC4.