Today the NY Times published a lengthy article about the high rate of suicide among police officers.
American policing has paid much attention to the dangers faced in the line of duty, from shootouts to ambushes, but it has long neglected a greater threat to officers: themselves. More cops kill themselves every year than are killed by suspects. At least 184 public-safety officers die by suicide each year, according to First H.E.L.P., a nonprofit that has been collecting data on police suicide since 2016. An average of about 57 officers are killed by suspects every year, according to statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. After analyzing data on death certificates, Dr. John Violanti, a research professor at the University at Buffalo, concluded that law-enforcement officers are 54 percent more likely to die by suicide than the average American worker. A lack of…
