For the third straight year, the leading cause of death among police officers is not a crazed gunman but rather suicide.
Blue H.E.L.P. , a non-profit group out of Massachusetts, reported that 159 officers in the United States took their own lives last year.
The statistic, which is compiled by the group in a private self submission is likely much higher than the confirmed number according to Tulsa Police Major Travis Yates.
Yates, a trainer at Law Officer, has been in law enforcement for close to 30 years and one thing he knows is that we still don’t know the impact that suicide is having on the profession.
“I’ve seen more cops than I care to discuss buried from suicide but I also know that on a national scale it is much larger than we actually know,” Yates told us.
“We are doing a lot better than we did when I started in this profession but we must do more and we should be relentless on prevention,” Yates concluded.
Yates told us that prevention involves every single police officer and every single family member.
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