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In the line of duty: examining suicides among police officers

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In the line of duty: examining suicides among police officers

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In the Line of Duty:
Examining Suicides Among Police Officers
Katherine Warner Lippert

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ANNENBERG
SCHOOL FOR COMMUNICATION AND JOURNALISM
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM

August 2020

Copyright 2020 Katherine Warner Lippert

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract …………………………………………………………………………………………. iii
Section I ………………………………………………………………………………………… 1
Section II ………………………………………………………………………………………... 6
References ……………………………………………………………………………………… 12

ii

ABSTRACT

In 2019, nearly twice as many police officers died by suicide than in the line of duty and,
according to advocacy groups, rates have been steadily increasing nationwide. While
the profession carries a disproportionately high risk of PTSD and suicide, law
enforcement departments remain ill equipped to manage the needs of struggling
officers. Instead of receiving therapeutic support, officers that disclose to their
supervisors that they are experiencing symptoms of depression risk being removed
from active patrol or having their service weapon taken by the department. This practice
of forced administrative leave is typical across the country and does not address the
roots of the issue: a systemic lack of support for officers after exposure to traumatic
events. In this piece, I examine the current support networks offered to police officers
struggling with mental illness symptoms as the result of their work. Through the lens of
the widow of a New Jersey State Trooper who died by suicide in 2018, this piece
illuminates the public health issue of mentally ill law enforcement officers and the
growing need for increased therapeutic support for police who experience depression
and suicidality.

Keywords: police, law enforcement, mental health, mental illness, PTSD, suicide

iii

I

When New Jersey state trooper Martin Walsh was killed by a gunshot on January 5 2018,
he was not honored with a traditional officer’s funeral. No flag adorned his casket, no
three-volley salute rang out, no uniformed guards were present to oversee his vigil. Despite 16
years on the force, memorials and websites dedicated to law enforcement deaths are missing his
name, because of the way he died.
Martin killed himself with his service weapon shortly after Christmas in the front yard of
his family’s home. His was one of at least 174 police officer suicides recorded in the United
States in 2018, though the actual number is unknown (Blue H.E.L.P., 2020). That year, 106
officers died in the line of duty -- 55 in events like ambushes or shootouts and 51 in accidents,
mostly car crashes (FBI, 2019). The following year, more than twice as many police officers died
by suicide than in the line of duty (CBS News, 2019) and, according to statistics from advocacy
groups, the rates of reports have been steadily increasing nationwide (Barr, 2019).
When Martin was struggling with alcoholism and PTSD after years on the force, he
pleaded with his wife not to tell his superior officers.
“No, no, I'm gonna lose my gun. I'm gonna lose my gun. If you call my Lieutenant, I'll
get in so much trouble,” Lauren Walsh recalled her husband saying on more than one occasion.
She never did, fearing she could be the reason he lost his beloved job, but now she sometimes
wishes she had. She wonders if it would have made a difference.
She thought she knew the trouble he was referring to - as the wife of a police officer,
Walsh saw herself as part of a greater law enforcement “family” and had heard stories of other
officers being placed on leave when they struggled with mental health issues. She’d even
threatened to call his lieutenant when his drinking got out of hand. But, while she was never in
contact with his department directly, Walsh knows Martin’s supervisors were aware of some of
his struggles.
“They all knew because he went to rehab. They were 100% aware of what was going on
with him, and I feel like they probably could have done more for him,” Walsh said. She recalled
1

one instance where Martin’s sergeant sent a trooper to check on him at home after he’d called
out of work and found him drunk. Nothing came of the visit.

“They just want to forget about it, really,” Walsh said of his commanding officers.
Recently, after another officer’s suicide in the New Jersey area, Walsh called the officer’s
superior to talk about these kinds of deaths. “He said, ‘You know, what can we do about it?’”
After Honolulu police officer Tiffany Enriquez was killed in a shootout in January, her
heroism was lauded in memorials by police departments in Seattle, Boston and New York
(KHON2 News, 2020). When Lakeland police officer Paul Dunn died in a car accident earlier
this year, a televised procession of police motorcycles accompanied his family to the funeral
(WFLA News, 2020). Most law enforcement officers who die by suicide are kept anonymous.
Their memorials aren’t broadcast, their names aren’t included in fallen officer monuments.
While protective service workers have the fifth highest suicide rate by profession, law
enforcement departments remain ill equipped to manage the needs of struggling officers. Deep,
institutional stigma against mental health treatment prevents most officers from seeking help
when they get overwhelmed at work. If they do pursue therapeutic support, officers that disclose
to their supervisors that they are experiencing symptoms of depression risk being removed from
patrol or having their service weapon taken by the department, if any action is taken at all.
“One of the quickest ways to be put on desk is if you’re struggling mentally and if you’re
not coping very well,” said LAPD union representative Sgt. Jeretta Sandoz. In law enforcement,
where the job quickly becomes enmeshed with an officer’s identity, being removed from active
duty can exacerbate existing symptoms of depression and anxiety, according to psychologists at
the LAPD.
Sandoz acknowledged that many officers are reluctant to seek help from the department
and that there is significant stigma associated with receiving psychiatric treatment. While
officers can volunteer to visit a therapist, Sandoz said it is more common for officers to be
required to undergo sessions at the mandate of their supervisor after an on-duty incident, such as
an accident or shooting. When this happens, she said, officers are typically placed on leave.
2

“Cops are, generally speaking, type-A folks. They’re the type providing help, not asking
for help,” said Doug Wyllie, an advisor for Blue H.E.L.P. “The stigma is about mental health and
wellness and taking care of yourself and each other, the same way you’d take care of someone
who was physically injured or wounded in the line of duty.”
Blue H.E.L.P., a nonprofit, has been compiling data on officer suicides from families
reports, public records and law enforcement departments since 2016, but has no way of
confirming if the information they receive includes all of the officer suicides that occur each
year.
Information about officer deaths in the line of duty is so easily accessible it's almost
boasted about, as these deaths are tracked by the federal government as well as local and national
organizations and individual law enforcement departments. However, in large part due to the
stigma surrounding mental illness, there has been no centralized organization or departmental
mandate which tracks law enforcement officer suicides. And, while the number of reported
suicides are increasing each year, the scope of the problem remains unclear. When a police or
correctional officer chooses to end their life, their death may be categorized internally in any
number of ways, making data analysis difficult.
“In terms of tracking law enforcement officer suicides, for many years agencies and
families and colleagues would disguise or sweep under the rug the fact that officers have been,
for many years, dying by suicide,” said Wyllie. He said when he reads death reports for officers,
certain phrases such as “sudden medical emergency,” “single vehicle crash” or “vehicle left the
roadway” are indicators that a suicide may have been intentionally miscategorized. These last
two phrases appear in 11 of the most recent 25 police officer deaths in car accidents that have
been classified as “in the line of duty” on the Officer Down Memorial Page, a national database
of fallen officers (ODMP, 2020).
After years of lobbying to implement nationwide tracking of officer suicides, the
Department of Justice announced in January that it would make funding available for local law
enforcement departments to begin keeping track of officer suicides (Houghton, 2020).
The Law Enforcement Mental Health Act was signed into law January 2018 and
prompted the development of a federal report on the best practices for therapeutic treatment for
3

law enforcement and military officers experiencing mental illness symptoms (115th Congress,
2018). The report, released early last year, produced a list of 22 recommendations, including the
development of a tracking system for suicides (FBI, 2019).

“There is no widespread, systematic effort to look at law enforcement suicides and their
circumstances the way there is about line-of-duty deaths,” the 2019 report reads. “The creation of
a law enforcement suicide event report is critically needed to understand suicide in law
enforcement.”
Experts point to the culture within law enforcement which makes officers reluctant to
seek help when they become overwhelmed and contributes to the secrecy surrounding suicide.
But, while some individual departments may try to combat the effects of policing on officer
mental health with options for therapy, the stigma against emotion is an inherent quality of how
officers are taught to do their job.
“Part of training is eschewing emotions as dangerous or weak because they cause
hesitation and hesitation will kill you,” Jay Nagdimon, the former director of the Los Angeles
Suicide Prevention Center and current LAPD psychologist, said. “So they worry about their job
and anybody finding out. They’re less likely to reach out for help.”
According to his wife, Martin had never wanted to do anything else but to be an officer.
He was already in the state police force by the time he turned 21, having completed a youth
training program for dedicated early recruits. Policing was the only job Martin ever had. He was
charming and friendly, helpful and handy around the house, but stoic and reserved regarding his
emotions.
“He really didn't talk to me about work. He didn't really express himself very well no
matter how much I asked,” Walsh said of her husband. “He would talk about it when he would
drink a little bit, I know certain things really bothered him, certain situations that he was in, but
he wasn't very, very vocal about it.”
But work, and life, wore on Martin. Over the years, he responded to calls for accidents
and tragedies, violence and abuse, but remained tight-lipped at home and never mentioned
4

specifics. He got into a bad car accident in December 2017, a little over a month before his
death, causing a relapse with the alcoholism he had battled for years.
Martin managed his accumulating stress with binge drinking as long as Walsh had known
him. He would be sober several months at a time, then find a reason to drink. In one instance,
after his first attempt at rehab, a fellow officer -- a friend of Martin’s -- died in a car accident in
the line of duty and his death spurred Martin to drink again. When New Jersey state trooper Sean
Cullen was struck and killed by a passing vehicle responding to the scene of a car accident in
March 2016, more than 100 officers, including Martin, attended his funeral. The service was
covered by NBC news. The nurse who tried to save his life was profiled by ABC. His memorial
can be found, amongst other places, in the Courier Post, the Officer Down Memorial Page and
on the New Jersey State official website. In the two years before his own death, which received
no news coverage or state-hosted memorial webpage, Martin struggled to maintain his sobriety
and checked himself into rehab twice more. It wasn’t until his third and final stint in a
rehabilitation center, roughly three months before his suicide, that Martin was diagnosed with
post traumatic stress disorder.
“I don’t see it as disrespectful to say we have a lot of emotionally injured police officers,”
said LAPD Chief Psychologist Kevin Jablonski. “And any of us would probably be injured if we
saw what they see every day.”
Their prolonged and repeated exposure to violent crime and accidents makes law
enforcement officers particularly susceptible to PTSD. The disorder, which causes changes in the
brain structure and function, can occur after a single exposure to a traumatic event, like
witnessing or becoming the victim of a crime -- things police spend their lives surrounded by
(Bremner, 2007). People with PTSD struggle with intrusive thoughts, anxiety, nightmares,
flashbacks and are more than twice as likely to suffer with substance abuse (McCauley, et al,
2012). They are also more than five times more likely to die by suicide than someone without the
disorder (Gradus, 2017). Nearly a third of police officers exhibit some PTSD symptoms,
according to a 2008 study, compared with 3-8% in most general populations (Asmundson &
Stapleton, 2008; Atwoli, et al, 2015).
5

Jablonski manages a team of therapists who oversee the therapeutic treatment of the
officers in one of the largest police forces in the world. He said one of the most common issues
he sees is trauma-related anxiety and depression, including thoughts of suicide. This is
particularly concerning to him because most traditional risk factors indicate the police population
should have a lower risk for suicide. Easy access to quality insurance and health resources,
average education and above average pay all act as barriers against suicide in most populations,
but not in police.
“If you keep in mind unlike the general populous, young officers have to go through
background check and psych evaluation, and we’re screening out people with substance misuse
and abuse or childhood depression - we’re starting off in their early career with a population that
should be a little more resilient,” Jablonski said. “It might be a bit uncomfortable for folks to say
- about a population they highly respect - these folks maybe aren’t as emotionally resilient and as
strong as we want to believe.”
He suggested that organizational pressure about performance, in conjunction with the
repeated exposure to trauma and institutional stigma against mental health treatment makes
officers especially prone to burn out and puts them at risk of suicide.
“I do think that there are, arguably, very good reasons why after 4-5 years, especially if
there is not psych intervention during that time, to rotate people out of even patrol assignments,”
Jablonski said. He has made this recommendation before, but said the idea gets no real traction
because there are concerns about increased employment turnover and some people believe it
suggests police are not good at or can’t handle their jobs.

II

When an officer dies in the line of duty, their station’s flags fly at half mast. Formal
memorial practices, including candlelight vigils and public eulogies, express a collective grief
from the larger community of police. After Corpus Christi police officer Allan McCollum was
stuck by a drunk driver, the entire police force wore black bands around their badges in
6

remembrance (Churchwell, 2020). More than 400 officers from 50 agencies attended the funeral
of Alabama police officer Nick O’Rear after he was fatally shot in February (Robinson, 2020).
Full payment of pensions and life insurance benefits are extended to the families of fallen
officers, as well as opportunities for grief counseling and family respite services, fully funded by
the department or community organizations. Honors are frequently bestowed upon the deceased,
as in the case of Glen Ridge officer Charles “Rob” Roberts, who was posthumously promoted to
Sergeant after he died of coronavirus complications (Zurita, 2020). The community of police
works tirelessly to meet the needs of the families of fallen officers, honoring their service and
sacrifice. Nonprofit and volunteer organizations fill in where they cannot, with memorial
foundations in every state.
“Death by suicide can lead to a loss of survivor benefits or the denial of funeral honors,”
reads a 2019 Department of Justice report on law enforcement mental health, which references a
general cultural reluctance to acknowledge the prevalence of suicide within law enforcement
communities (FBI, 2019). “Agencies that do not want to hurt the survivors further can therefore
be incentivized to remain silent about suicides.”
The line of duty specification, used as a determining factor for benefit and posthumous
honor eligibility, includes deaths from illnesses developed after exposure to hazardous conditions
or injuries sustained while working. It includes accidents like inadvertent gunfire, car crashes
and heart attacks on the job. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, it includes COVID-19
deaths. But, despite the increased rates of PTSD among law enforcement, and the risk of suicide
that comes with it, the designation specifically excludes “any death which an officer intentionally
brought about themselves.”
April Scherzer, a friend of Walsh’s, and her newborn twins lost their health insurance just
two months after her husband’s suicide. She received no pension or life insurance payout, despite
his 12 years of service in the Westampton Township police department (Rappleye and Siegel,
2019). Stories like hers are common among suicide widows, left suddenly girefstricken and
without financial assistance to navigate the expenses of death and, often, single parenting. In
some instances while collecting records for Blue H.E.L.P., the names of which he could not
7

specify for privacy reasons, Wyllie said he has come across instances where families are forced
to keep their loved one’s suicide a secret in order to maintain their benefits after death.
“I was very, very lucky. I got my husband’s pension, his life insurance. They took care of
us, but most widows do not get that or they have to fight for it,” Walsh said. “I've only heard of a
couple of widows who’ve got all of that. And the stations kind of just leave them high and dry.”
However, a little more than two years after Martin’s death, Walsh is managing a different
complication.
“If your husband died by suicide and you remarry, you lose the pension,” Walsh said.
“Which, to me, makes zero sense at all because we're still raising the children and we had
nothing to do with our husband's death. Like, it was their decision. That, to me, is a way to
control my life.”
Bills have been mounting while she supports her two children as a recently single mother
and Walsh is preparing to move out of the house where they’ve grown up - the house where
Martin ended his life. Their daughter, now nine years old, knows how he died, but her little
brother, now seven, doesn’t yet. Walsh can no longer afford the mortgage and, perhaps just as
importantly, walking past the spot where her husband died in the front lawn still makes Walsh
uneasy. It took her over a year to be able to walk to her driveway from the front door. She used
to have to hire people to mow her grass so she wouldn’t be forced to linger nearby. She bought a
small home a few blocks away, a “fixer-upper” she’s working on renovating into a new space for
her and her kids, hoping the reduced mortgage will lessen the strain on her financial situation.
Luckily, Walsh and her children had health insurance from her own work as an
elementary school teacher, or they would have had to go without. But, she found, the payouts of
her husband’s benefits, which still didn’t equate to his full salary, were the extent of the support
she received from his department and the larger police community after his suicide.
Before Martin’s death, Walsh had considered the police community a fairly significant
part of her life. Most of her social circle was involved with law enforcement somehow. She was
part of social media groups for police wives and families and regularly attended events or
supported fundraisers for the New Jersey state troopers. After his death, the phone didn’t ring.
Walsh wasn’t offered messages of support from the officers she had previously considered good
8

friends. She left the Trooper-Wife Facebook group she’d been a member of because she couldn’t
stomach it anymore -- all they talked about was how they loved the support of their “Blue
Family” and she could no longer relate. Since his funeral, Walsh has only had contact with two
or three officers from the police station where Martin dedicated his life.
“You know, they talk about this big police family. But really when it comes down to it
they're really not. They're really not,” Walsh said. “Like, if there was such a big police family,
you know what, maybe one of them would have been there for my kid's first day of kindergarten
or they would show up on, you know, father's day to hang out with them or anything like that.
But they really don't care.”
Scherzer echoed Lauren’s sentiment of grief and abandonment in a recent interview with
NBC (Rappleye and Siegel, 2019). Scherzer’s husband, Max, died the year before Martin and the
widows were brought together when Scherzer began undertaking outreach projects with Blue
H.E.L.P. for the surviving families of officer suicide victims. Shortly after Martin’s death, Walsh
was introduced to Scherzer and the two bonded over their shared grief and experiences having
loved husbands who died after struggling with alcoholism and PTSD. Together, they mourned
for their losses and for their children who were suddenly without their fathers. They lamented the
lack of resources for widows and the lack of honor for their husbands.
There are more than a dozen online memorial webpages for fallen law enforcement
officers. Most adhere to the line of duty specification to determine which officers to honor. The
most prolific, the Officer Down Memorial Page and the National Law Enforcement Memorial,
specifically list suicide in the disqualifying criteria for memorial recognition. A representative
from the Officer Down Memorial Page declined to give a reason for the exclusion, but said the
topic of officer suicides has been the subject of “many discussions” and referred to Blue
H.E.L.P. as the best source of relevant information. The Concerns of Police Survivors support
group offers grief counseling and therapeutic summer camps for families of officers killed in the
line of duty, but historically specifically excluded those devastated by officer suicides. The few
organizations that exist specifically for law enforcement widows often emphasize the line of duty
designation as eligibility criteria for support services.
9

In an attempt to begin processing her grief, Walsh started reaching out to other police
suicide widows. When Scherzer had come into her life, Walsh felt a sense of solidarity with her,
and wanted to be able to provide that to others. With the assistance of Blue H.E.L.P., she began
reaching out to the families of officers who took their own lives and developed a small nonprofit
called Inside the Badge to promote awareness about police suicide. She started sending notes of
encouragement, gifts and money to widows who had recently lost their husbands and care
packages on the anniversaries of their deaths.
The women she meets, now nearly two dozen around the country, have slowly filled the
gap of support Walsh felt when she lost her “blue family.” There is a cluster of several widows
in New Jersey, Scherzer and Walsh included, who now regularly check in on each other, helping
to support each other in their daily lives, with their children, and in their activism.
Scherzer also continued her volunteering with impacted families and promoting officer
mental health awareness. Recently, in conjunction with Blue H.E.L.P. and a grant from the
Motorola Solutions Foundation, she announced her latest project: Camp April, a bereavement
camp specifically for children who have lost a law enforcement loved one to suicide. Part of the
Camp April mission is to provide opportunities for kids to have bonding experiences with law
enforcement officers, who volunteer as staff for the weekend getaway, and with other families
who have lost loved ones to suicide.
In early 2020, shortly after Camp April was announced, the COPS support group decided
it would create a second therapeutic camp program - one designed for the children of suicide
victims, reversing their previous stance on these cases.
Beginning this year, with funds now available from the Law Enforcement Mental Health
Act, individual departments may apply for federal grant funding to support the tracking of officer
suicides (FBI, 2019). Each report will be stored in a database maintained by the Office of
Community Oriented Police Services, in hopes of finding discernable patterns in the age or
tenure of officers who die by suicide and illuminating currently unknown health risks or barriers
preventing their treatment.
In the last year, as more people have started discussing officer suicides, more have been
reported to Blue H.E.L.P., according to co-founder and police veteran Steven Hough.
10

“We believe that's due to a change in dialogue,” Hough said. “Not that there's been so
many more officers who've committed suicide or completed, but just we're getting those reports
now.”
In addition to increased reporting, the conversation about officer mental health and illness
has spurred a dialogue about whether lives lost to suicide after an officer’s diagnosis of PTSD
should be classified as line of duty deaths.
“Many of the widows that have lost their husbands in the line of duty agree that suicide
should be a line of duty death,” Walsh said. Typically, she does too. In the case of her own
husband, however, she feels conflicted.
“I really do see it that he was diagnosed with a mental illness. PTSD definitely caused a
role in the suicide. But then I also see it, at the time of his death he was an active alcoholic, so
should he really be honored or should that really be considered line of duty? I feel like it's a very
fine line if I'm being honest.”
Overall, Walsh doesn’t have a strong opinion about whether or not her own husband’s
suicide should be classified as a line of duty death. More importantly, what she wants is for
suicide not to disqualify an officer from being honored or prevent their families from accessing
resources. She wants others to remember her husband like she does: as the engaged, playful
father he was, not just his alcohol addiction and suicide. She wants to be able to include Martin’s
memory during memorial motorcycle rides or online posts about fallen officers without feeling
like his service doesn’t count because of the way he died.
“Marty's job was everything to him. He did not leave the house without being a police
officer,” Walsh said. “They should still be honored also if we're focusing on the amount of work
they did, their dedication to their job.”

11

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“2020.” The Officer Down Memorial Page (ODMP), 2020.
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“Honoring the Service of Police Officers Who Died by Suicide.” Blue H.E.L.P., June 26, 2020.
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Hough, Steve. Interview by the author. Northridge, CA. February 28, 2020.

Houghton, Kimberly. “Months after Nashua Officer's Suicide,
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14

Nagdimon, Jay. Interview by the author. Northridge, CA. February 7, 2020.

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O'Hearn, Erin. “Nurse Who Treated NJ Trooper Says He Was 'Fighting for His Life'.” 6ABC
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Rappleye, Hannah, and Emily R. Siegel. “When a Police Officer Dies by Suicide, What Help
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Robinson, Carol. “'His Legacy Will Not Be Forgotten': Fallen Kimberly Police Officer Nick O'Rear
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15

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16

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17

Abstract (if available)

Abstract In 2019, nearly twice as many police officers died by suicide than in the line of duty and, according to advocacy groups, rates have been steadily increasing nationwide. While the profession carries a disproportionately high risk of PTSD and suicide, law enforcement departments remain ill equipped to manage the needs of struggling officers. Instead of receiving therapeutic support, officers that disclose to their supervisors that they are experiencing symptoms of depression risk being removed from active patrol or having their service weapon taken by the department. This practice of forced administrative leave is typical across the country and does not address the roots of the issue: a systemic lack of support for officers after exposure to traumatic events. In this piece, I examine the current support networks offered to police officers struggling with mental illness symptoms as the result of their work. Through the lens of the widow of a New Jersey State Trooper who died by suicide in 2018, this piece illuminates the public health issue of mentally ill law enforcement officers and the growing need for increased therapeutic support for police who experience depression and suicidality.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Lippert, Katherine Warner (author)

Core Title In the line of duty: examining suicides among police officers

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Specialized Journalism

Publication Date 07/30/2020

Defense Date 07/29/2020

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Law enforcement,Mental Health,mental illness,OAI-PMH Harvest,Police,PTSD,Suicide

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Kahn, Gabriel (committee chair), Cohn, Gary (committee member), Saks, Elyn (committee member)

Creator Email kwlippert@gmail.com,lippertk@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-351171

Unique identifier UC11664020

Identifier etd-LippertKat-8831.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-351171 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-LippertKat-8831.pdf

Dmrecord 351171

Document Type Thesis

Rights Lippert, Katherine Warner

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA