Posted on 10/17/2019 7:18:31 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
The suicide of a police officer in Montgomery County, Maryland, this week is part of a surge in law enforcers across the country taking their lives, prompting police departments to address concerns about the mental health of their members.
Psychologists and police officials say a number of factors — such as increased scrutiny, mandatory overtime, perceived hostility and physical danger — contribute to the daily stress on officers.
“I have been in law enforcement 23 years myself. I can’t recall a time ever that its has been so stressful and difficult to be a law enforcement officer,” said Officer Sherri Martin of the Enfield, Connecticut, police department and chair of the national officer wellness committee of the Fraternal Order of Police.
Among the police officers who have ended their lives in recent weeks:
⦁ Montgomery County Police Officer Thomas Bomba, 38, requested backup Monday for a report of disorderly conduct at a parking garage in Silver Spring, Maryland. When officers arrived, they found Officer Bomba suffering from a gunshot wound. He died later at the MedStar Washington Hospital Center.
The chief medical examiner for the District of Columbia announced Tuesday that the 13-year veteran of the Montgomery County force died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
⦁ An off-duty sergeant for the New York City Police Department fatally shot himself in his home in the Fresh Meadows neighborhood of Queens on Tuesday. He was the 10th officer the department lost this year to suicide.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
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Being a peace officer is often very hard to begin with. But now you have Democrats preventing you from enforcing politically unfashionable immigration laws or protecting politically unfashionable people attacked by Antifa thugs, and then, on top of it all, accusing you of racism to curry favor with race-baiting hucksters.
Ok, I want to be sympathetic...but am I the only one bothered that the guys with the badges and the guns have a problem dealing with stress? I do realize this is a small percentage of police, but suicidal thoughts are a mental illness and incompatible with having authority to include deadly force over others.
You can thank Black Lives Matter.
You can also thank politicians who think policework must be politically correct first and effective last.
Suicide by occupation top 5. From CBS:
Farmworkers, fishermen, lumberjacks, others in forestry or agriculture (85 suicides per 100,000).
Carpenters, miners, electricians, construction trades (53).
Mechanics and those who do installation, maintenance, repair (48).
Factory and production workers (35).
Architects, engineers (32).
Suicide by occupation from Business Insider (x higher than average worker):
Marine engineers (1.89X)
35 suicides
1,295 white male deaths
Medical Doctors (1.87X)
476 suicides
16,887 white male deaths
Dentists (1.67X)
148 suicides
6,274 white male deaths
Veterinarians (1.54X)
39 suicides
1,353 white male deaths
Financial services (1.51X)
170 suicides
4,562 white male deaths
Chiropractors (1.5X)
43 suicides
1,516 white male deaths
Construction / equipment supervisors (1.46X)
35 suicides
2,038 white male deaths
Urban planners / social scientists (1.43X)
148 suicides
3,068 white male deaths
Hand molders (1.39X)
48 suicides
2,084 white male deaths
Real estate sales (1.38X)
460 suicides
18,763 white male deaths
It’s a gut wrenching, thankless and sometimes heartless job. I did it for 24 years. If not for a a congenital spinal malformation I would still be doing it. I saw a number of fellow officers kill themselves. Some did it quick with a gun. Some did it slowly with a bottle or pills. Either way, they’re still dead. You have to find your own motivations to do the job, because you’re not gonna get a pat on the back very often. And you have to find a way to deal with the stress when it comes. I’m glad I did it. But I’m also glad I’m retired.
CC
I fail to see your point. Just because cops aren’t in the top 5 for occupational suicides the cops who kill themselves are less dead? The stress is less real?
CC
And thank you for your service to our country as well.
Just because you are not military and serving in an officially declared war zone, does not mean you were any less protecting the lives of decent Americans than the officially labeled soldiers did.
It was just a different capacity.
A few bad apples give all LEOs a bad name and unfortunately, it does seem like the bad apples are on the rise. However, I have known some LEO’s personally, and they were genuinely nice people who did it because they wanted to help people and make a difference in the world, and thought this would be a way to do it.
God bless you, sir.
CC
Thank you. I served proudly, and if my health allowed, I would serve again in an instant.
CC
“The stress is less real?”
I looked real hard at my post and I don’t think I said that. But a lot of people like to jump to conclusions.
I was looking around at various sources and found conflicting and confusing results. I think a lot of stems from the categorization of occupations which can lump various occupations together. So sometimes police can be in security which obviously includes private sector.
There are differences in gender, age. I do know in healthcare that there are significant differences in specialty and something like this probably applies to police. Detective, beat cop, administrator. For police, location, crime rate is probably very important,
I think when you look at suicide risks by occupation it’s probably more revealing to divide up by positions or specialty in each occupation. Otherwise it’s too broad to be meaningful and you’ll reach the wrong conclusions .
When you look at suicide it’s important to identify the outliers for obvious reasons.
So that’s my point. More segmentation of results would lead to more useful results. Try not to fly off the handle next time.
I have be in for 22 years. At about the 20 year mark I found my self less motivated and more stressed and slight anxiety in stressful situations. I think it’s pretty common at about 20 years. I work for a department with about 600 sworn officers. A few months ago we had a very good officer kill himself. After the funeral another officer went home and did the same thing. I worked with both of them and it really hit me hard. When a brother does it you turn it over and over in you head if you could have done something to prevent it. Of course I couldn’t have but it swims around in my head.
I served in the Navy also and see way to many vets do it also. Why the increase; I have no idea. I lean towards the anti-depressants.
I can retire in two years but am almost reluctant to do so. I have seen a lot of good officers die soon after retirement after crawling into the bottle. I pray Trump gets reelected so when I retire I can drink more liberal tears than beer!
You summed it up quite nicely...
Working for an arbitrary and capricious tyranny would depress anyone.
Try some volunteering in retirement. Better to keep your focus a bit more outward than inward if you know what I mean. In this circumstance boredom can literally kill you. You don’t have to make it a full time thing. Start looking for what to do now so you can engage it right away if need be.
Police have enough problems without leftist politicians putting them in a hard place where they are not allowed to to the job they are supposed to.
Leftist media likewise interferes with police actions.
I hope the next time you call the cops they don’t come.
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