Suicide Bigger Threat for Police Than Criminals
By ALISON LEIGH COWAN
NORWALK, Conn. - When Matthew Morelli, a 38-year-old police officer, was
found slumped in a secluded parking lot with an AK-47 rifle on March 21,
state and local authorities spent two days looking for a suspect, with
helicopters and police dogs scouring the neighborhood, where witnesses
reported hearing multiple shots. The culprit turned out to be a stealthy
if surprisingly familiar cop killer: suicide.
"We're all numb," said William Curwen, the president of Norwalk's police
union, speaking for many at Officer Morelli's wake almost a week later.
Within one recent week, a 35-year-old New York State trooper fatally shot
himself with his service pistol after learning that he might be
disciplined for minor misconduct, and a New York City police officer was
found dead in her home in Upper Manhattan, propped up in bed with the
Glock pistol that delivered the fatal shot in one hand, a beer can in the
other. And the Los Angeles Police Department, which has counted one or two
suicides annually in recent years, presented a report last month calling
for online prevention programs for all employees, additional training for
supervisors, and psychologists at roll calls to discuss the topic with
officers.
While line-of-duty deaths grab the public's attention, experts say that
law enforcement officers more often - perhaps two or three times more
often - die by their own hands. Comparing suicide rates within law
enforcement with those in the general population is difficult because
statistics are kept by different agencies and it is hard to account for
demographics. Also, the general population does not undergo the extensive
psychological and physical screening most officers undergo when they are
hired, making comparisons questionable. But many who have studied the
phenomenon agree that the stress of the job and easy access to weapons can
contribute to a higher risk for suicide.
"We're losing a police officer every 19 or 20 hours of self-inflicted
wounds," said Robert E. Douglas Jr., a former Baltimore police officer and
chaplain who runs the National Police Suicide Foundation in Maryland. "It
is a big wow. It's so sad because what you see in Connecticut goes on all
the time."
Mr. Douglas estimates that 400 to 450 officers kill themselves each year,
compared with 150 to 200 who die in the line of duty. In Norwalk, at least
five officers besides Officer Morelli have committed suicide since 1974;
four officers have been killed in the line of duty since the department
was established in 1913, the most recent ones in 1982 and 1971.
Some law enforcement agencies have beefed up prevention programs after
seeing troubling spikes in suicides within their ranks. The California
Highway Patrol expanded peer counseling and suicide-related training after
losing 10 of its roughly 7,900 officers to suicide in 2005 and 2006; last
year, said Capt. Susan Coutts of the employee assistance unit, "we had
one." The Maryland State Police saw a cluster of suicides, including two
from the same barracks, in the 1990s, and initiated programs to identify
officers at high risk, along with mandatory psychological consultations
and firearms reorientation for officers involved in fatal shootings.
"I know we didn't have a suicide for years after that," said David B.
Mitchell, who was Maryland's State Police superintendent from 1995 to 2003
and now is Delaware's secretary of safety and homeland security,
But some law enforcement leaders would rather not acknowledge the problem,
given the emotional and financial implications that can hang in the
balance. Officers who fall in the line of duty have their names etched on
a prominent wall at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund in
Washington and posted on Internet sites. Their funerals are better
attended, and their survivors are typically eligible for some $300,000
from the federal government alone, as well as college scholarships.
"When you're killed in the line of duty, you get a huge send-off," said
Mr. Mitchell, who also served as police chief in Prince George's County,
Md. "It's a hero's send-off, and that doesn't happen if you kill yourself.
There's a stigma attached to it."
Mr. Mitchell said that he has "seen a number of staged murders that were
actually suicides," similar to the scene where Officer Morelli was found.
Suzie Sawyer, a co-founder of Concerns of Police Survivors, a nonprofit
group that represents families of officers who die in the line of duty,
said it can be difficult even to count suicides because "police agencies
will try to say it's an accidental discharge, because it's pretty hard to
admit that your good buddy is trying to end his life."
More than 32,000 Americans each year take their lives, or about 11 per
100,000 people in the general population, according to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention.
Several academic studies have estimated the number of law enforcement
officers who commit suicide at about 18 per 100,000, though Mr. Douglas's
count, compiled from news accounts and personal contact with police
departments, would put the rate at two or three times that.
Wayne R. Keeney, a defense lawyer in Connecticut who spent nine years on
the New York City police force in the 1970s, has little doubt that
officers are at risk of suicide because of their exposure to danger and
stress, a reluctance to seek psychological help, and the cold fact that,
unlike many civilians, they "usually have a gun sitting around."
He said that for years after shooting a suspect who was fleeing the scene
of a crime, he had nightmares in which he dreamed his gun's trigger was
jammed and the weapon failed to fire. But Mr. Keeney said the counseling
he received afterward consisted of fellow officers taking him out to get
drunk. Mr. Mitchell said he also suffered nightmares, lost weight and was
left by his girlfriend in 1973, after he was in a shootout in which a
fellow officer died. "We buried him on a Saturday morning," Mr. Mitchell
said. "I went to work that night."
He said he did not seek counseling for several years, fearful that
reaching out would wreck his career. "Today we're a lot more
sophisticated," he said. "We put people on administrative leave."
Lt. Paul Resnick, a spokesman for the 175-member Norwalk Police
Department, said few would argue that police work, with a roster of grim
tasks that include chasing suspects, racing to bloody crime and accident
scenes and following up on child abuse cases, can take a toll.
"People call you when they're under the most stressful circumstances, when
their lives are out of control and you're trying to deal with that, with
limited resources," he said. "To somehow think you can turn the switch off
at the end of the day is not realistic."
There is no indication, however, that work-related stress led to Officer
Morelli's death; he had not been involved in any shootings during nearly

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