[ad_1]
NEW YORK – A wave of police officer suicides has shaken the New York Police Department, prompting the Commissioner to declare a mental health emergency and highlighting the problem of untreated depression among police officers. the public force of the country.
On Wednesday, Robert EcheverrÃa, 56, became the ninth NYPD officer to commit suicide this year. His death comes one day after another officer, 35-year-old Johnny Rios, killed himself.
These deaths occurred despite the department's increasing efforts to encourage officers to seek help to fight depression and other mental health issues. After the death of two police officers two days in a row in June, Police Commissioner James O'Neill sent a memo reminding the more than 36,000 police officers and 19,000 NYPD civilians that it was possible to get help if they felt depressed, hopeless or in contemplation. l & # 39; self-harm.
But the dead have continued.
"It's extraordinarily painful," Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday. "We have lost officers in the past, but this concentration is devastating. We will do everything we can to help the officers and put an end to this situation. "
Suicides are a recurring nightmare for the country's largest police force and sparked a discussion about the psychological consequences of police work, a profession in which the mental health debate was long considered taboo.
"It was something nobody had ever talked about," O'Neill said.
Law enforcement officials across the country say that they hope to change this state of mind.
President Donald Trump has recently signed a bill authorizing a grant of up to $ 7.5 million annually for police suicide prevention efforts, mental health screenings and training to identify at-risk agents .
"It's getting a lot more visibility than ever before," said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum. "The nature and extent of this problem are not well known and the numbers we have are probably under-reported."
Suicide kills more victims each year than violence in the line of duty.
Prior to this week, there have been at least 122 law enforcement suicides in the United States this year, according to Blue HELP, a Massachusetts non-profit organization dedicated to helping officers with PTSD, depression and other mental health problems. This figure, which includes retired officers, gives the country the pace of the highest balance sheet of the past four years at least.
"It's an epidemic," said Randy L. Sutton, a former Las Vegas police lieutenant who founded The Wounded Blue, another law enforcement group.
The suicide rate among police officers is about 16 in 100,000, according to 2013 figures, the latest figure available in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention database.
The suicide rate in the general population has risen to about 14 per 100,000, according to the CDC, its highest level since the Second World War.
John Violanti, a professor at the University of Buffalo and a police stress specialist, said officers may be less likely to seek mental health treatment than the average person because of the nature of their work.
"The essence of the police culture is to never show weakness," he said. "It affects your personality and the cops develop this type of hard shell."
The nine officers who committed suicide that year shot at each other and did not have to go very far to find a gun. Studies have shown that suicide rates are generally higher in states where a higher percentage of households own firearms.
"The availability of the firearm 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, makes them particularly vulnerable," said Wexler.
Police officials in New York City said the department usually has four or five police officers commit suicide each year.
The wave of suicide among law enforcement officers has drawn attention in places other than New York this year.
The Chicago Police Service, after the death of six police officers by suicide in the space of eight months, broadcast in April a video featuring police officers who asked for help. A federal consent order requires the ministry to increase the number of advisors in its employee assistance program.
"It's just a matter of getting rid of everything that weighs on you," says Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, comparing the stress of police work to a volcano. "This summit will come off at some point."
Many organizations offer employee assistance programs, but departments oppose the perception that agents, in their view, will come back to their supervisors – or that they will be declared unfit for work.
"If a cop breaks his leg, everyone will sign his casting and say," I wish you good luck, "said Mark DiBona, a retired patrol sergeant from Florida who had once envisioned suicide." No one will sign your forehead when you say, "I am fighting".
In New York, police officials encourage officers to use a range of confidential help options, including peer support groups and a 24/7 online text line.
In many departments, the last thing supervisors want to hear is that an officer carrying firearms is showing signs of instability. That was the mentality of many years ago in Phoenix when officer Craig Tiger fell into a spiral of self-destruction after fatally killing a man who was threatening people with a bat.
It took an arrest for drunk driving one year after the 2012 shootout for Tiger to finally be admitted to a behavioral health center, where he had been diagnosed with PTSD, said his ex-wife, Rebecca Tiger. In group sessions, Tiger realized that he had many of the same symptoms as veterans.
He had witnessed the death and for years had been treated with alcohol.
"I think that very often, the police do not want to admit to other people that they are suffering," said Rebecca Tiger, herself a former policewoman from Phoenix. "The department has never talked about post-traumatic stress. He has never been high in training. "
The chief of police at that time fired Craig Tiger after his arrest. Tiger is killed a little more than a year later.
The police's reaction compounded the pain of her ex-husband's death, Rebecca Tiger added.
"If a citizen called the police department and said," I'm suicidal, "we'll rush out there to help her," she said. "Craig told me for months that he was suicidal and I could not get any help for him."
Last year, Arizona passed a law known as the Craig Tiger Act, which compensates police officers for the treatment of PTSD. He offers them up to 36 counseling visits after being involved in traumatic incidents at work, such as witnessing a death.
"Now, if you have PTSD and need time to heal and recover, you are not without pay," said Rebecca Tiger. "I think the stigma around this is changing."
[ad_2]
Source link