On Tuesday at 11 a.m., a rookie police officer attempted suicide inside a station house locker room in the Bronx’s 47th Precinct in the Edenwald section. The 22-year-old cop, who joined the department in December 2021 — suffered a gunshot through the cheek, according to sources — was rushed to Jacobi Hospital where he’s expected to survive his injuries.
But Tuesday’s incident is just one in a disturbing trend in law enforcement where the rate of suicides among police officers is surpassing the rate of officers who die in the line of the duty.
So far this year, two NYPD officers — a reassigned cop who jumped to his death in Elmhurst on Jan. 10 and a cop who died due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a car in Queens on Jan. 20 — have died by suicide. New York state ranks among the top three states in the nation in regards to law enforcement suicides.
While the NYPD was mum on the next steps in the rookie cop’s recovery and subsequent mental health outreach for the precinct’s other officers, the incident weighed heavy on a few Bronx police officers who spoke with the Bronx Times on Tuesday.
One officer from the 46th Precinct who requested anonymity, said that the “weight of the badge” and the high exposure to violence and death takes a toll on any uniformed first responder. That officer said he briefly considered suicide in 2021 after responding to a gruesome murder scene that summer.
“You spent your entire life training to be this police officer who saves lives, but then you feel like a failure when you fall short on one case, or you see the family of a parent who trusted you for answers is still grieving,” said the officer, who has been with the NYPD for roughly four years. “It’s painful. It’s mentally defeating, and a lot of (officers) suffer in silence.”
Silence and stigma have historically played a role in law enforcement employees seeking mental health treatment.
A 2018 survey by the Fraternal Order of Police…
Read the full article here