October 18, 2011
By Timothy Janowick
The parents waited anxiously in the driveway in the middle of the night as the squad cars arrived, red and blue lights the only illumination of their distraught faces in the darkness. The sergeant shuffled them quickly into the car. As quickly as they appeared, the squads rushed to a local trauma center.
“We had to provide a lights-and-siren escort for a sergeant from a neighboring town last night,” my midnight shift watch commander related. “All we know is an officer had been shot and the sergeant needed to get to the officer’s parents’ house right away.”
A few days later, I stood silently, reverently watching the funeral procession pass on Central Road led by numerous area squad cars, fire engines, and ambulances. A 29-year old officer led to his final resting place. Not the victim of violent action. Not the person in the wrong place at the wrong time of a crash. Not a “traditional” line of duty death. Rather, a young officer dead at his own hand.
He wasn’t the only suburban Chicago officer to commit suicide last week.
Police officers are murdered by felons roughly 70 times every year - by firearms, strangulation, means of terrorism, and by beating. But there is another beating law enforcement officers take, often secreted from the public, hardly ever discussed in training, rarely acknowledged openly by police agencies. It is the dark secret behind the blue wall.
Suicide takes the lives of more law enforcement officers every year than by those intent on murdering an officer. According to the Badge of Life, approximately 145 officers committed suicide in 2010, a rate of 17 suicides per 100,000 officers. The general population suicide rate is 11 per 100,00 people.1 But we don’t really know what the true number is for law enforcement. Some estimate between 350 and 400 officers commit suicide each year. Others commit to a number between 145 and 400.
Unfortunately, because police suicide is more of a secret than an open book, where agencies and officers hide the truth or fail to discuss the realities, we don’t know the exact number. But we do know it is higher than the public at-large.
The nature of the job has the potential to wear on the hearts, minds, and souls of good cops - shift work; being away from family; seeing the bad, the ugly, and the evil of society; improper and inadequate coping strategies (denial, alcohol abuse, extra-marital affairs); and the politics of police organizations can lead a good man or woman down a dangerous path in the absence of proper awareness and support.
Depression can overcome us; suicide can end us and wreak havoc with those who love us. Balance, understanding, compassion, honesty, and action are requisite.
Law enforcement takes great strides to ensure officers are mentally fit when hired - strong warriors in mind, spirit, and physical prowess. Often, we stop after the hiring is complete. Little, if anything, is done to ensure mental and emotional health after a career is moving ahead full steam.
A husband-and-wife, cop-and-social worker, team from Chicago’s western suburbs - Michael Wasilewski and Althea Olson - discussed “Another Cop Killer” in a three-part series on Officer.com.4 “Although there are still vocal and determined opponents of the disease model holding to the vestigial belief that someone who complains of depression is lazy, of weak character and constitution, a malingerer, or even demon-possessed, far more people now see depressive disorders for the serious and debilitating problems they are.” In law enforcement, we need to be here with eyes wide open. Depression is a rarely discussed, often ignored, oppressor.
Some very good law enforcement ambassadors and role models have undertaken a great cause in reducing line of duty deaths for law enforcement officers. Dave “J.D. Buck Savage” Smith promotes the theme, “Not Today!” Officers must adopt this motto, ingrain it in their thoughts during every confrontation, every contact. Dale Stockton and LawOfficer.com are actively engaged in the Below 100 mission to decrease line of duty deaths below 100 for the first time since 1944, particularly through areas where officers have control: strapping on a seatbelt, reducing speed, wearing a vest, avoiding complacency, and asking “What’s Important Now?”2
We are educating officers about the control they have in preventing their deaths in the line of duty. These are not the only areas where officers have control of their outcome in the performance of their duty.
We need to broaden the scope of action aimed at lowering the number of deaths of law enforcement officers and include reducing suicides, particularly when we do more harm to ourselves than the bad guys do. It’s time to step out from the shadows of our walls.
Wasilewski and Olson ask tough questions: “Will you be able to see [depression] so clearly if it hits a colleague, a friend, or even yourself? Will you know what to do then?”
Education and awareness are essential to curbing the impact of a tough job and the damage done unto ourselves, just as it is through Below 100’s endeavor to reduce line of duty deaths.
Agencies should develop peer support teams and critical incident stress debriefing teams. Depression and suicide awareness training must become incorporated in our training. Cultural change must incorporate open and frank discussion identifying where organizational culture increases risk, how to recognize destructive behaviors, and the means to conduct interventions.
In his article, “Below 100 - Be The Change,” Brian Willis challenges us to stop making excuses: “As I speak to law enforcement professionals around North America, I continually hear people start a sentence—an excuse, really—with the words “I’m just a…” I’m just a patrol officer, I’m just a corporal, I’m just a sergeant, I’m just a Lieutenant, etc. What follows is an excuse why they can’t make a difference in their organization, an excuse why they’re somehow not responsible for effecting a change in the culture of their organizations.“3
What good excuse is there, really?
Action requires the currency of courage, responsibility, and accountability. Courage to speak openly, to ask the tough question, to involve the families. Responsibility for ourselves - how we choose to react, to engage in our own emotional self-care, to cope with the challenges of policing, to ask for help. Accountability to and for each other - ask a buddy how he’s doing, listen to telltale language, notice the behavioral changes, act when we recognize depression.
Today’s challenge is to say “Not Today” to it all - accidents, inattentiveness, short-cuts, miscalculated or inappropriate bravado, carelessness, depression, and death by our own hands.
We are the force for change - in ourselves and in our agencies. Winning - on the street or in our souls - is not an option.
Be the change. Bring light where there is darkness.
1 “Badge of Life, a national police suicide prevention group noted its credibility, has announced its figures on police suicides during 2010.” <<http://www.policesuicideprevention.com/id48.html>>
2 Stockton, Dale. “Below 100 - Introduction.” Officer.com. October 20, 2010. Accessed at: <<http://www.lawofficer.com/article/below-100/below-100>>
3 Willis, Brian, “Be The Change.” LawOfficer.com. August 23, 2011. Accessed at: <<http://www.lawofficer.com/article/below-100/below-100-be-change>>
4 Wasilewski, Michael and Olson, Althea. “Another Cop Killer.” Officer.com. 08 April 2011. Accessed at: <<http://www.officer.com/article/10233345/another-cop-killer>>
See also:
Wasilewski, Michael and Olson, Althea. “Another Cop Killer, Part 2.” Officer.com.