The Identification of High-Risk Behavior That has the Potentiality of Culminating in the Covert Suicide of a law Enforcement Officer (In: Suicide and Law Enforcement, edited by D C Sheehan & J I Warren)

The disinclination to discuss suicide is compounded in the law enforcement community where officers are expected “to suck it up” & not admit to problems. The literature is replete with examples of situations where an officer most likely died by suicide but the death was classified as accidental. In addition, careful perusal of officers’ deaths identifies some examples where there is a question of whether the death was a result of aggressive police work or a covert suicide. The purpose of this chapter is to be a consciousness-raising effort to identify officers exhibiting high-risk behaviour & prevent both the overt & covert suicide. JA