Little research and training being done to combat police suicides, experts say

There’s almost no systematic research being done in Canada into the causes of suicide among police officers and other first responders, an expert on the issue says.

There’s been media-wide coverage of suicides in the military related to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) since the end of the Afghan mission. But far less about cops, paramedics, corrections officers, firefighters and even social workers who kill themselves because what they experience on the job becomes too much to bear.

“I think this is a huge gap that governments and organizations, and academics even, don’t know the rates of stress that are out there and the number of suicides,” says Dr. Jeff Morley, a retired RCMP psychologist and clinical director of the Tema Conter Memorial Trust, dedicated to providing psychological support for first-responders.

The problem jumped into sharp focus again on Sunday when a veteran Ottawa police officer committed suicide at police headquarters.

Staff Sgt. Kal Ghadban, whose responsibilities included commanding units investigating street crime and human trafficking, was found dead in his office from a self-inflicted gunshot wound that police believe came from his service pistol, the Ottawa Citizen reported.

Ghadban, 43, had been a policeman for 22 years. Though investigated a decade ago for a use-of-force complaint (he was cleared), Ghadban led some high-profile investigations, including the break-in at Liberal Leader Justice Trudeau’s Ottawa residence. He had a wife, two sons and a daughter.

News reports and other information suggest more than two dozen first-responders have killed themselves in recent months. But Morley told Yahoo Canada News no one officially tracks suicides among police – active or retired – and other first-responders, and next to no clinical research is available on their mental-health concerns.

Just why is a good question.

“I think governments may not want to know the answers they find because that may require a response,” Morley said in an interview Monday. “There’s no one really stepping up to drive these issues nationally.”

[ Related: PTSD-attributed suicides among first responders continue to rise ]

The situation is a little better in the United States, where on average 300 police officers kill themselves every year, said Robert Douglas, executive director of the National Police Suicide Foundation. Douglas said for every officer who dies in the line of duty, two commit suicide.

American police agencies are years behind the U.S. armed forces in acknowledging stress-related suicide, he said, adding the military was given a direct order to address the issue.

“We didn’t even do any training,” Douglas said. “Less than three per cent of our 18,000 agencies in the United States had any kind of what we call PSA modeling [police suicide awareness].”

Douglas, a former Baltimore police officer who’s been working in this field for 25 years, said there’s still a “cultural bias” about suicide within police agencies whose leaders either deny there’s a problem or see it as a personal issue they don’t need to address.

Douglas expects a big push next year to implement awareness training.

“We have waited until the 11th hour to address this issue.”

The rough profile of an officer suicide victim constructed by the foundation shows that generally they are white males aged around 35, married or in a long-term relationship and working a front-line policing job rather than behind a desk. Only three to five per cent have adverse job histories.

“Most of them had no previous record of misconduct,” Douglas said.

In cases where an autopsy was done, Douglas said alcohol was found to be a contributing circumstance in the suicide. Many experienced a loss of control in their personal lives, such as divorce or separation.

Douglas said the vast majority of U.S. police suicides take place at home and are usually linked to some form of family breakdown

“When you see an officer kill himself in a station house, or in a cruiser, or in a substation, or on police property, the ‘why’ will lie within the agency,” Douglas said, adding a home suicide doesn’t necessarily absolve the officer’s department of responsibility.

[ Related: RCMP suicide levels a ‘mental health crisis,’ says Mountie ]

While PTSD receives most of the attention these days, Douglas said cumulative career trauma stress (CCTS) may be responsible for more officer suicides. CCTS could be responsible for up to 70 per cent.

While PTSD can be triggered by single traumatic event, police throughout their careers can be exposed hundreds of times to fights, dead bodies from suicide, homicide or traffic accidents, and emotional death notifications to families.

“So the cumulative exposure to traumatic events in policing clearly is a huge, huge issue and it weighs people down over the course of a career,” Morley said.

The buildup of what Douglas called “toxic emotions” often has no outlet. Officers will not open up to their spouses, hoping to keep job and family separate. And family members usually have no tools to detect abnormal psychological stress and offer help.

“They don’t have the coping skills to deal with this officer and what the officer is going through,” Douglas said.

Morley said there needs to be a national strategy for mental health and suicide prevention among first-responders. All agencies are facing similar issues but there is no co-ordination.

Whatever little training or advice on dealing with stress that is given at the police academy is buried under all the other things rookie officers must learn.

“I think there needs to be education and discussions about this throughout the career span,” Morley said.