European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 24, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse Policemen target their own by Jules Loh a special correspondent i he Man did t show up for work so Cindy ass phoned his Home. No answer she jumped in her car and rushed to his House. He was there a bottle and a Glass at his Side. Trust me she said to him you must Trust me now her heart pounding she Slid her Finger Between the trigger and the trigger guard and eased the muzzle of the gun from his Mouth. Cindy Goss is one of America s More successful battlers against what one forensic psychologist Calls a hidden epidemic police suicides. It is hidden because suicides tend to be hushed up in part out of reluctance by police authorities to admit they May be work related. And although Epi Demic May not be quite Apt there is nothing contagious about suicide there does appear to police psychologists to be an undeniable increase lately across the country. In America about 16 of every 100,000 adults com Mit suicide annually. At least that is the figure generally accepted among psychologists studying the problem seriously. In the new York City police Force of 30,000, the nation s largest at least 63 officers have committed suicide in the past 10 years. That s 31 percent higher than the average. Last year s eight suicides were nearly double the average. In the Jacksonville fla., Force of 1,200, tiny by comparison four suicides in the past two years is 10 times the general rate. I Don t see any tic directly to the Job said Jack Sonville s director . Brown. Neither did new York police commissioner Raymond Kelly. All eight suicides on his Force he said stemmed from Domestic problems not police work. While there Are no government statistics on the suicide rate of policemen the occupational safety and health administration does however report that cops have a life Span eight to 11 years Shorter than the average. Specialists who study police Sui cide say the rate on a National scale is at least double that of the general population and possibly higher. You could not convince Cindy Goss that the Rea son has nothing to do with the emotionally draining work. Cops incidentally refer to their work As the Job As if no other fit the definition. Goss is a certified Counselor for drug and alcohol abuse. She went to work with the employee assist Ance program for new York s Erie county and met with Success in every county office except one. In the sheriffs department she said nothing seemed to she set about discovering Why. What she discovered about the Job others in the Field have also discovered. To oversimplify the progression from idealistic police Academy graduate to depressed cop Witk his gun in his Mouth goes like this graduate frequently exposed to blood Gore and danger. Does not Anbu Filien these horrors on spouse. Spouse would t understand. drinks with the Guys after work helps to unwind. Fellow cops under stand. Can t Trust civilians. Can t admit troubles even to fellow cops would be considered a wimp. Can t Trust fellow cops. Drinking increases. Spouse takes off gun is Handy. ". The gun Cindy Goss removed from that officer s Mouth was one of five similar rescues she has Mao a in As Many years. All five men Are Back at work. There s no telling How Many lives the program she devised five years ago might have saved. But the de crease in absenteeism leave turnover tardiness and other measures of departmental performance Are so marked that the program has become Manda on the Job policemen in Charleston s.c., Nail a suspect in 1991. Lory in every police Agency in Erie and other new York counties and has leaped the Border into Canada. No Agency to adopt it has recorded a suicide since. More obvious say colleagues Are the hundreds of careers even marriages saved Long before the progression reaches the gun in Mouth stage. Cops Are Well screened before they sign on said Harley Stock. Most have a mentality More like a so Cial worker than a Soldier. Over time and in increments they Don t recognize their personality gets chipped away and Stock among other specialities is a screener. He knows the progression Well both from textbooks and experience. He has earned a handful of degrees including a doctorate in police psychology a narrow but expand ing specially. He s a certified swat team member and hostage negotiator. He worked with two dozen police agencies in Michigan and was police psychologist in Broward county fort Lauderdal Efla. He now has his own treatment Center Interphase 911" in Boca Raton exclusively for policemen and entirely confidential. Typically Stock said the cop who commits Sui cide is a male White 35, working patrol abusing Al Cohol separated or seeking a divorce experiencing a recent loss or disappointment. Typically a Domestic dispute is involved. Cops Are controlling individuals. When a cop loses control in his own Home he can t handle it. For 24 to 36 hours he is acutely suicidal. He barricades himself in his House and Maltes All kinds of threats. If he can get beyond that Point he gets himself Back together very quickly. You Don t see that in the Gen eral population. Also about 90 percent of the time the cop is drinking heavily when he shoots that was the Case in All five of the men Cindy Goss took the guns from. Here s a statistic with lots of supporting data to Back it up Stock said. About 10 percent of the general population who drink become alcoholics. Among cops the figure is 23 percent. Cops also abuse drugs. And Here s another solid statistic the suicide rate among alcoholics in the general population is 270 As opposed to 16 per 100,000." among cops after shift drinking bouts Are so endemic u the Job that they have a Universal cup he miss apr it choir practice. If the Pitfalls of choir practice Aren t obvious Stock explains alcohol at first releases tension but if you drink enough it becomes a depressant. So if you have an underlying depression it makes it worse. The suicide rate among people suffering from depression is 230 per 100,000. What you have then is a psychologically panicking cop full of alcohol depressed with Access to a weapon. Bad combination. Bad in a recent study of 20 suicides in one Large mid West police department 13 of the victims were Alco hol abusers. Joseph Wambaugh the writer has Long studied the progression from idealism to despair. Wambaugh was a los Angeles cop for 17 years. His books fic Tion and nonfiction Are As much about How police do their jobs As what the Job does to them. Cops of course the worst of people but they expect that when they sign on he said. What they Don t expect and nothing can pre pare them for it is to see Ordinary people at their worst. This works on their sense of belief i would say and they tend to become prematurely Wambaugh Stock Goss and others seem to recognize the same Steps toward depression and use the same phrases to describe other traits of the Job. The John Wayne syndrome for example. This is the cultivated swagger of authority and its Corol Lary the Macho refusal to admit a weakness or ask for help. Eventually said Wambaugh the badge becomes almost heavier than he can april 24, 1994 sunday Page 7
