Another PNW Policeman Commits Suicide

KATU | April 28,2003

[oceanperch]

Sherwood Police Officer Shoots Self In Station

SHERWOOD - Authorities say a 32-year-old police officer

left a suicide note and shot himself to death in the

Sherwood police station.

Police Chief Eamon Bishop said today that Benjamin Crosby returned from a vacation to the police station yesterday

morning. He shot himself in a holding cell.

Bishop says Crosby was depressed and under stress for personal reasons.

Bishop said Crosby was in a lot of pain and he "had a lot of comfort in this building."

Crosby leaves behind a wife and young son.

The death marked the second time in as many days that a N orthwest police officer shot and killed himself.

On Saturday, Tacoma, Washington Police Chief David Brame shot his estranged wife before turning the gun on himself. The couple had been going through a divorce. His wife remains in critical condition.

[oceanperch]

Divorce seems like such a better way if things cannot be worked out.

Are people turning into cowards?

[Search4Truth]

The nightmare that is our divorce courts is taking its toll.

[Bigg Red]

How sad for his son.

[Billy_bob_bob]

Perhaps it has something to do with the wildly anti-male bias in our family law courts nowadays. From what I have seen you would have to be certifiable to agree to get married with our current laws. We have arrived at a state where women have all the rights and men have none. How many women are working three jobs to pay child support to a kid you never get to see, and who is being poisoned against them?

[oceanperch]

Life only gets this bad when someone takes a life.

[oceanperch]

If you cannot trust someone you are going to have a family with then I would
A- Keep Looking
B- Have pre-nups to cover everything even a natural disaster.

[laotzu]

Please advise, what is a "PNW Policeman"?

[Black Bart]

Crosby was in a lot of pain and he "had a lot of comfort in this building."

Perhaps. But I tend to believe suicide is often the ultimate revenge, and those opt for it also select their stage for the greatest impact on their target audience.

[archy]

Are people turning into cowards?

These are of course both examples of *suicide by cop.*

-archy-/-

[Anamensis]

Wasn't it Emile Durkheim who said that in a society where divorce is allowed, men commit suicide more than women, and in a society where divorce is not allowed, women commit suicide more than men?

[Not Insane]

I cut this from some other freeper on a previous thread. It is so true:

"Men must understand that Marriage and Children are an invitation to total Government regulation of their lives. Nothing is beyond the scrutiny of some judge somewhere, and it could cost him everything."

A pre-nup won't necessarily help. And no matter how careful you are, people change, sometimes wildly.

[oceanperch]

PNW is aka as Pacific North West it refers to our corner up here. Washington, Oregon and western Idaho.

[oceanperch]

I don't know but sure seems like the humans are getting more like sharks.

[oceanperch]

So everyone is frustrated and po'd.

Not a very inviting proposel knowing down the line your mate may take your life.

Would it be to generalized to say women overspend and men stray.

[oceanperch]

I do not know but guessing would say it's fifty/fifty fault.

Scary.

[oceanperch]

I think more than change they get comfortable and their not so better side comes to surface.

[Justa]

The Pacific Northwest a.k.a. Greater Bulgaria.

[DBrow]

"A pre-nup won't necessarily help."

I agree. I do not know the details of this latest suicide, but the first one, the almost-murder suicide, sounds like an unintended consequence of the Lautenberg Amendment.

A military or police career is most threatened by that amendment and the threat of using it can easily push someone over the edge.

[Risa]

>>But I tend to believe suicide is often the ultimate revenge, and those opt for it also select their stage for the greatest impact on their target audience<<

While it may be true that some people commit the act while in a rational state of mind, many who would take their life suffer from severely disrupted brain functioning, i.e. major depressive disease.

These people are victims of disease, not revenge seekers; their neurochemistry is so disrupted and they are in so much pain that they don't know what they are doing. Once the neurochemistry is fixed, and they are able to think rationally again, they are mortified that they ever experienced such an aberrant state of mind.

The tragedy is that, despite all the medical advances made possible by new brain imaging techniques, our society is so uneducated about the health of the human brain that people don't heed warning signs of neurochemistry going awry. This man's co-workers knew he was in pain, so he obviously manifested symptoms of disease. With proper treatment, his life could have been saved.

Sounds to me like the department needs to conduct some good education programs, so its people can learn to recognize good brain health, how to maintain it, how to recognise early warning signs of disease, and where to get medical help.

risa