Out of Darkness Walks for Suicide Prevention
Surpassing the Statistic
State Corrections Local 105 brings the names
of suicide victims out of the darkness
Honor guards from Union County Corrections Local 199 and State
Corrections Local 105 create a pathway for families participating
in the Cumberland County Out of the Darkness Walk.
■ BY AMBER RAMUNDO
It’s the call that members of the State Corrections Local 105
Executive Board never want to get. In his three years serving as
Local 105 executive vice president, William Sullivan has gotten
the call about a corrections officer taking his or her own life so
often that the shock has started to wear off.
As the suicides became more frequent, Sullivan realized that
he had developed a protocol to respond to the tragedy. The
heart-rending routine is as follows: first, call Cop2Cop; next,
notify the family, Local 105 Executive Board and NJ State PBA;
and last, schedule an honor guard for the funeral. “I shouldn’t
have a checklist for when something like this happens,” Sullivan
recognized. “I shouldn’t be an expert at planning funerals.”
Sullivan’s routine for responding to tragic suicides was shak-
en when, in December 2017, he once again received the dread-
ed call — only this time, he recognized the name of the victim,
T.J. Nacca. Sullivan had been in touch with Nacca regularly after
the Local 105 member, who worked at the Adult Diagnostic and
Treatment Center, experienced an injury on the job. Sullivan
never anticipated that he would be helping to plan the officer’s
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■ NOVEMBER 2018
funeral.
“I talked to the guy every day for like three weeks,” Sullivan at-
tested. “I got to thinking, ‘What is it that I missed or could have
done differently?’”
The call came again four months later, when another Local
105 member, Emre Karakaya of Southwood State Prison, decid-
ed that the pain was too much to bear and ended his life.
Taking steps toward prevention
It’s during these tragedies that Local 105 First Vice President
Sean Sprich is reminded how essential the Peer to Peer service
is in helping corrections officers realize that they don’t have to
face challenges on their own. “In corrections, we learn to isolate
ourselves from our families and friends,” noted Sprich, who is
also a peer leader. “If we’re burying three to five officers a year to
(suicide), it’s horrible. It’s completely preventable.”
Following Karakaya’s passing, the Local 105 Executive Board
was contacted by the corrections officer’s sister. Asli Karakaya
shared that she would be taking steps toward suicide prevention
in honor of her brother at the Out of the Darkness community
walk taking place in Cumberland County. She hoped that mem-