Cline

Karen Solomon, the founder of Blue H.E.L.P., an organization honoring the lives and service of law enforcers who die by suicide, said that 132 officers were killed in the line of duty in 2019 and 228 took their own lives.

In Chicago, most of the last dozen or so Chicago Police Department suicides were committed by officers with less than seven years on the job. In the past, suicides were more characteristic of officers with 15-plus years’ service. Officer and supervisor opinions vary as to the reason for this seeming shift. Some believe snowflakes, unprepared to face evil, are melting with the heat of the job; some blame lower standards and poor training; others place suicides at the feet of leadership and politics.