Justice
Pulling Back the Curtain on Police Officers' Suicides
Local efforts and federal laws are softening the macho culture and opening up new avenues for cops to ask for help.
Ron Clark still remembers the long, sad climb up the stairs of a house in Cornwall, Connecticut. A distraught mother had called Connecticut State Police saying she could not locate her 13-year-old daughter and Trooper Clark was dispatched to her home. The mother told him she had searched the whole house. Clark took a deep breath, and then asked about the basement.
“I knew that was the place to look,” he said. “And so I went down the stairs and took a few steps and well, you know, there she was. Hanging. I’ll never forget her face. Or walking back up all those stairs. To the mother. Waiting for me. To tell her. To this day I can still hear that mother’s screams.”