3 Police officers commit suicide during 72 hour period www.privateofficer.com
By: Rick McCann
Ntl. Assoc. Private Officers
www.privateofficer.com
It has been a deadly week-end for law enforcement. Three police officers working for three separate agencies in three different parts of the country were killed in less than seventy two hours. All three died traumatic deaths leaving many to wonder why.
But these three officers didn’t die at the hands of a drug dealer, bank robber, fugitive or other low-life criminal. These officers all died from self- inflicted gunshot wounds.
Suicide among police officers has always been high and kept quiet by many departments. An inside secret, a little known fact, an issue kept out of the public’s eye.
Ask any police chaplain or crises intervention specialist the reason for the high rate of police suicides and you’ll hear the array of reasons. Stress, grief, the stuff cops see on a daily basis, feelings of inadequacies and job dissatisfaction, domestic issues, drug and alcohol abuse and many other issues. Pile that stuff on top of what every officer already silently carries inside and it’s a recipe for disaster.
Either the officer is going to blow up one day and kill others or he’s going to kill himself. Many officers nationally face the potential of being suicidal and yet their departments almost never recognize the signs according to Mary Anne Wallace, a mental heath and crises specialist in Maryland.
On Friday evening officers rushed to an officer’s home in Milwaukee after hearing rumors that he might be considering killing himself. The young officer, for reasons not yet made public had let it be known that maybe it was time to end it all.
A sergeant and several officers managed to arrive and talk to the officer who stood holding a gun to his head. The supervisor pleaded with the officer to put the gun away and talk it out but the officer was determined that his life should end. At some point during the conversation, the sergeant felt that he could prevent this tragedy if he could get the gun away from his officer so he fired one shot into the suicidal officer’s leg in an attempt to get him to drop his gun but instead the officer managed to pull the trigger killing himself. His name has not been released and according to authorities, the shooting is under investigation.
The reason the officer felt it was necessary to end his life has not been made public.
On Saturday night less than twenty four hours later and hundreds of miles away police and emergency workers rushed to the home of a twenty four year Boston police officer who had been on the force since 2006. The young officer who was from a family of cops had also ended her life with a bullet.
“This is a tragedy. We have a very young female officer who took her life. There is no story here. We don’t know why. The family is devastated. I’m devastated. I personally know this girl,” an unnerved Boston Police Superintendent in Chief Robert Dunford told reporters and bystanders at the scene. “I have no explanation.”
Dunford refused to name the officer, but multiple law enforcement sources identified her as Kaitlyn Elizabeth Keaney, a member of the department’s 2006 graduating class. Keaney is a member of an extended family of Boston police officers, and her father is a cop in South Boston, the sources said
Swarms of policemen descended on 431 East 6th Street, a quiet part of South Boston that was thrust into a maelstrom of police lights, squad cars, anguished cops and stunned neighbors. By midnight much of 6th Street was cordoned off.
A solemn-looking Boston police Chief Edward F. Davis III also went to the scene. He declined to comment but circulated among officers and neighbors offering quiet condolences. Davis spent much of his time soothing many young women who stood about in tears.
The suicide rates among police officers in the US has always been mystifying. While some departments have recognized the growing issue and are trying to address it with on staff chaplains, crises intervention workers and staff psychiatrist, others have chosen to ignore it or have a worry about it when it happens attitude according to Wallace.
In Nashville Tennessee, the metro police department employs four full time chaplains that are available to officers twenty four hours a day. It has been a standing practice that when an officer is involved in an on duty violation, domestic incident or has shown signs of wanting to harm themselves, the officer is striped of his weapon and taken off duty until he is cleared by medical staff to be back on the street.
In the last nine years, 19 LAPD police officer’s have committed suicide as opposed to 7 killed in the line of duty in the same time frame. It’s a staggering statistic that has no reason or rhyme.
Earlier this year in Brentwood Tennessee an officer ending his shift pulled his patrol car into the parking lot of police headquarters and shot and killed himself leaving behind an extensive letter addressed to his family and several others. Just down the road and up on Interstate 40 in Mount Juliet, a suburb of Nashville, an officer’s two way radio sat silent as his dispatcher continued to call out his unit number. Fearing the worst, officers from several police agencies were dispatched to locate him and they did. The worst had happened but not at the hands of others. While sitting in his police vehicle on the interstate, the officer had shot and killed himself.
In 2006, an off duty police chief from a neighboring Birmingham Alabama city was found beside the police memorial in downtown Birmingham dead from a gunshot wound. Investigators soon learned that the chief had killed himself sometime before the morning rush hour as he sat at the foot of the memorial.
There are no words to adequately describe what being a police officer really does to a persons mind, body and soul. Unless you wear the badge and live the life it would be hard to begin to bring you inside a world different that any can imagine. While the job is no excuse for a person taking their own life, it can be the driving force behind the thoughts and feelings that eventually turn to action.
As police suicides continue to climb, I can only hope and pray that police departments worldwide will put forth the effort to recognize the symptoms, address them before the jumping off point, add trained professional counselors to the department’ staff and encourage their officers to open up and talk without being afraid of reprimand or suspension or termination for the feelings that they might temporarily be having or the issues that they might be facing.
Police officers on the job day after day face battle fatigue no different than soldiers in combat and demons that are bigger than they are and we need to be there to help ease the stress, carry their load and sooth their pain and always be willing just to listen.
