In late December 2020, the well-respected police chief of a township in suburban Philadelphia took his own life. Like most suicides, no one close to him saw any warning signs. This death came just 3 months after the chief of a department one county over also died by suicide. Losing police chiefs in this way occurs far more commonly than people think. It also raises questions: How widespread is the problem? What are the risk factors? What can be done?

Reports on officer suicide prevention exist that offer considerable information on police suicide as a national concern, significantly increase understanding about the factors involved, and offer sound recommendations for addressing it.⁵ However, none of these resources speak about chiefs who take their own lives.

Reporting

Because police chiefs are prominent municipal officials, their appointments, resignations, retirements, terminations, and deaths are generally reported in the local media. Issues that arise during their tenure are also considered newsworthy. Suicides of police chiefs, even of those retired, are sometimes reported if the death is so identified.⁶

However, no data is available on the consistency of media coverage of police chief suicides. In general, those of officers have a history of being unreported or inaccurately reported.⁷ Similarly, police chief suicides may not always be disclosed as such by the municipality, department, or media.

A lack of clarity continues to characterize initial media reports of police chief suicides, often described as sudden or unexpected deaths or sometimes as an “apparent suicide.”⁸ The official cause of death may not be cited as suicide, even when so determined later. Some media reports reference controversies, scandals, or criminal activity on the part of the decedent.⁹

Serious Issue

Population

Police chiefs represent a small subset of law enforcement professionals in the United States. In 2016, there were 15,322 “general purpose law enforcement agencies” in the United States, of which 12,251 were municipal police departments. A “local police chief” has overall command of each agency.¹⁰

The only other statistical data for police chiefs is that when last surveyed, in 2008, 97% were men and 90% were white.¹¹ These demographic features have likely changed significantly since that tabulation. However, the prevailing gender/race makeup of police chiefs as a group remains pertinent to their suicide risk because adult white males account for most suicides in the United States.¹²

Incidence

Blue H.E.L.P. is a Massachusetts-based, volunteer-run nonprofit that works to “acknowledge the service and sacrifice of law enforcement officers ... lost to suicide.”¹³ It has tracked police suicides since 2016. The agency’s database includes reports of 120 “command staff suicides,” including those involving 22 chiefs, culled from the media and other sources.¹⁴ This suggests there are four to five police chief suicides annually in the United States.

A better measure to determine the suicide rate is computed by dividing suicides in a given time period by the population in which the deaths occurred and multiplying by 100,000.¹⁵ Using available data, the crude annual suicide rate for police chiefs is as follows:

                        4.4 estimated police chief suicides per year

                        __________________________________    X 100,000 = 35.9

                                    12,251 municipal police chiefs

This rate is far higher than that of many other high-risk groups. It is almost twice the rate for officers and other law enforcement professionals — estimated at 18.1 per 100,000 annually.¹⁶ For all branches of the U.S. military in 2019, the overall rate was 25.9 per 100,000.¹⁷ Among military veterans, the rate in 2017 was 27.7 per 100,000.¹⁸

Better data will soon be on hand. In January 2020, the Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection Act went into effect, authorizing the FBI to accept reports on suicides of U.S. law enforcement personnel.¹⁹

Risk Factors

Police chiefs may have the same suicide risk factors as adults in the general population, although aspects of their position may amplify some factors.

• Mental disorders, particularly clinical depression
• History of alcohol and substance abuse
• Feelings of hopelessness
• Aggressive tendencies
• Isolation (i.e., a feeling of being cut off from other people)
• Barriers to accessing mental health treatment
• Loss (relational, social, work, or financial)
• Physical illness
• Easy access to lethal methods²⁰

Several factors may contribute to suicide risk in police officers and, by extension, chiefs.

• Job-related values may “take over” and affect behavior and relations outside of police work.
• Social relations and trust may narrow over time to the department, promoting isolation and loneliness.
• Positivity may be lost because of continuous contact with the most negative sides of society.
• A tendency may develop toward control, problem-solving, and fixing things.
• The danger exists of becoming psychologically worn down by always being on duty, dealing with constant stress, and routinely coping with frustration and potential danger.²¹

Military service is another strong suicide risk factor that may be common in police chiefs.

Chiefs may have any of the outlined risk factors pertaining to the public, as well as the role drift, professional insularity, negative perspective, and wrap-around stress that can affect law enforcement officers. Maladaptive coping styles may also add to their “suicide nexus.”²²

Media reports on police chief suicides sometimes mention circumstances that may bear on suicide risk. Professional misconduct, criminal behavior, a gambling or other addiction problem, and retirement are often cited. Each of these may involve involuntary or voluntary loss of status and affiliation with the law enforcement community. Losing both social connectiveness and self-value may increase suicide risk.

Police chiefs facing retirement may experience suicidal thinking pending loss of identity and going “from a life of leading and contributing to one of standing on the sidelines.”²³ Blue H.E.L.P. found that almost 40% of retired officers who killed themselves had been retired for less than 1 year.²⁴ The first year of retirement may be similarly hazardous for former police chiefs. Risk may especially accrue among those retiring amid controversy or being forced out.

Politics is another stressor that may have suicide risk implications for police chiefs. A survey of police chiefs identified the “most discouraging, dissatisfying aspect of their job as being frustrated by working in the political environment and dealing with politicians.”²⁵ Mayors and municipal managers may see the police chief as their “servant.”²⁶

Hopeful Responses

General Guidance

Much has been done to identify measures to deter suicide risk in police officers. So far, none have been proposed for chiefs, who may not be amenable to suicide prevention measures designed for line officers. However, some of the approaches may be at least partly applicable.

• Build resilience and healthy coping skills
• Improve access and decrease barriers to mental health care
• Identify and assess persons at risk
• Normalize and increase help-seeking behaviors
• Develop and strengthen peer supports
• Prepare for and assist during transitions (e.g., change of duty, retirement)
• Provide support after a suicide death or attempt²⁷

Police chiefs are tasked with putting such measures in place in their departments, but they receive little guidance on how to relate to them when they are in distress.

Recommendations

While other crisis intervention and suicide prevention strategies may be adopted to address police chief suicide, the author offers three readily doable proposals as a starting point.

1) Raise Awareness

Police chief suicide must become part of the ongoing conversation. Programs and strategies for prevention must include all levels of law enforcement, from cadets to chiefs. Prevention starts with raising awareness of the problem, especially because it is not widely recognized. Law enforcement leaders hear much about the suicide risk borne by their personnel but little about their own.

Leadership programs for aspiring chiefs, executive training for current chiefs, and orientations for new chiefs often touch on police officer suicide. Participants should also be introduced to the reality of it in their ranks, learn about the risk factors and warning signs, and recognize what they should do about it.

2) Provide Support

Peer support should be extended to police chiefs in every jurisdiction. However, while peer support has proven an effective resource, it is not yet typically available to chiefs.

A well-received model of such a program exists. The Mid-America Regional Council has operated the Command Level Peer Support Team in the greater Kansas City, Missouri, area since 2018.²⁸ Participants from police, fire, EMS, and dispatch complete a 4-day training program covering topics such as command stress, post-traumatic stress disorder, suicide risk, and line-of-duty deaths. During the program, they can talk to a colleague at their rank with insight into command-specific stressors.²⁹ Police chief associations exist at the county, regional, and state levels and can sponsor such teams to serve their members.

3) Implement Hotlines

Regional or statewide toll-free, closed suicide crisis hotlines should exist for police chiefs. In 1998, New Jersey created Cop2Cop, the first confidential 24-hour hotline for police officers in the United States, in conjunction with Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care, to provide a crisis intervention resource for law enforcement personnel in the state.³⁰ Calls from every community in New Jersey are answered by retired police officers, mental health clinicians, and peer support specialists.

An organization such as the State Associations of Chiefs of Police could consider creation of four regional hotlines covering multistate areas. These would be staffed by retired chiefs and others with appropriate backgrounds and crisis intervention training. Access to this telephonic resource could be restricted to chiefs.

Conclusion

Police chief suicides receive nominal attention and no action. This may be because they seemingly occur infrequently and, generally, are widely dispersed geographically. Despite Pennsylvania’s recent experience, most states go many years without having a police chief take their own life, and some may never have such a loss.

Nonetheless, police chief suicide is a serious and long-neglected concern. Changing this and moving toward evidence-based prevention starts with raising awareness of the problem through advocacy, research, and education.