NJ Radio: Man Dies After Jumping From WWZY Tower

UPDATE 6AM 4/24: Police have identified the man who died after jumping from the WWZY transmitting tower. The death of 60-year-old Pedro Macias of Elizabeth, N.J., has been ruled a suicide.

Earlier Posting...

A man died after jumping from the top of a radio tower in the city’s downtown area Monday evening, according to nj.com.

Long Branch Public Safety Director Jason Roebuck said a man jumped from the WWZY 107.1 FM Y107 radio tower, which is located off of Memorial Parkway between Broadway and Belmont Avenue.

The tower is located in the heart of a blighted section of the city that has been the target of a large-scale redevelopment plan for several years, and where many of the commercial buildings below currently sit vacant.

Roebuck said authorities were still uncertain if the man - whose identity was not released - was alive or dead as of 8:45 p.m., because they were still trying to locate the man’s body inside, which he said was "stuck" in the vacant building the man fell into. At that time, several emergency vehicles lined the streets near the tower and bright flood lights could be seen shining on the exterior of the building.

Firefighters cut a window in the east wall of the building to recover the man’s dead body, which was brought out of a window and lowered to the street in a rescue basket, Hayes told the newspaper. The vacant building was "too unstable for firefighters to enter," he said.

Witnesses at the scene said the man was on the top of the tower for at least an hour, during which time they could see him “swinging” around parts of the tower and could hear him yelling something that was undecipherable.

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