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what you deal with on the dark side in a confined environment,
it can lead you to a very bad place unless you learn how to talk
to someone who has been through something or even consider
speaking to a medical professional. You have to learn how to work
on your well-being from the time you leave that facility.”
And as officers walked away after the event, they did so with
some key objectives. Try to prevent anything. Preventing even one
suicide is one life saved. Cop2Cop is taking hundreds of calls each
month.
So being a brothers’ and sisters’ keeper is a 24-7 detail.
“At our place, we always have resources available all the time,”
reminds Local 199’s Nagy. “We always say to each other, if you need
to talk to somebody, our phones are 24-7.”
Local 134’s Ponder reminds that taking your own life is a perma-
nent solution to a temporary problem, and that things can always
change. “So always lean on your fellow officers, because we can al-
ways help you,” she says.
Pacucci phrases that sentiment a bit more acutely:
“Sometimes you can’t be afraid to ask that important question,
‘Do you want to kill yourself?’ Sometimes it jogs their memory, it
jogs their head, and they say, “‘Wow, it’s obvious. Maybe I should
do something about this.”
Mills requests that officers try not to worry so much about oth-
er things going on that you forget about each other. Or, in other
words, don’t let this happen to you:
“If you see anything, no matter how small, at least ask the per-
son. If you’re not happy with where they’re going, go a little fur-
ther,” Cop2Cop’s Weiss offers. “This happens more frequently than
we’d like to admit. In hindsight, you don’t want to realize, ‘Wow, he
might have said this or he might have done that or I should have
done this or I should have done that.’ So you can always do a little
more.” d
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NEW JERSEY COPS
■ NOVEMBER 2017