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Gliniewicz suicide a ‘complication’ for helping cops with mental illness

It brought attention to the substantial monetary difference between line of duty death benefits and standard pension

By Lauren Zumbach
Chicago Tribune

FOX LAKE, Ill. Some mental health advocates say they worry the high-profile suicide of a Fox Lake police officer last year could make it tougher to find support for legislation aimed at helping public safety personnel and their survivors.

“It’s added a whole new complication to any kind of future legislation around line of duty deaths, including suicide,” said Steve Moore, co-chair of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s Illinois chapter. “It will complicate things, and now you will have legislators questioning whether this is appropriate.”

That includes future versions of a measure proposed in the Illinois General Assembly last year that would have expanded the definition of a line of duty death to include law enforcement officers, firefighters and paramedics who commit suicide if a medical professional attested it was a result of their active duty service, Moore said.

The death of Fox Lake police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz on Sept. 1 was initially investigated as a homicide in a line of duty shooting. Two months later, investigators said the veteran officer had staged his suicide to appear as a murder, fearing alleged embezzlement would soon be exposed.

Gliniewicz’s death brought extra attention to both police suicide and the substantial monetary difference between line of duty death benefits and standard police pension benefits.

Under Illinois law, the surviving spouses of officers who die in the line of duty are entitled to larger pension benefits and are eligible for other assistance, including free health insurance, free tuition for the officer’s children at state-supported colleges and lump-sum payments, Illinois pension attorneys said after Gliniewicz’s death.

Moore said he doesn’t think Gliniewicz’s suicide is the reason the proposal appears to have run aground in the Illinois House of Representatives after easily clearing the Senate in April.

Its progress appeared to have stalled months before Gliniewicz’s death and a version introduced in a previous legislative session also failed, Moore said.

State Sen. Michael Hastings, D-Tinley Park, who introduced the bill in February, declined to comment.

Moore said the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention supports the bill as a way of recognizing that just as law enforcement work can put officers at risk of physical violence, the stress and trauma they experience can put them at risk of developing mental health issues.

“Not only do police officers put their lives on the line daily, perhaps being shot at or killed in the line of duty, they also put themselves at risk psychologically,” Moore said. “We owe it to their families to compensate them for that death in the line of duty.”

Robert Douglas, executive director of the National Police Suicide Foundation, said legislation like the Illinois proposal is “way overdue.”

It’s difficult to say how common suicide is among law enforcement officers because there’s no comprehensive tracking system. But according to a 2014 report from the International Association of Chiefs of Police, it’s estimated that twice as many officers take their lives than are killed in assaults or traffic accidents.

David Blanchette, spokesman for the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police, said the group acknowledges that suicide is a “silent epidemic” among police officers.

“Anything that addresses that problem deserves careful consideration,” said Blanchette, who added that the organization has taken several steps to improve suicide prevention efforts.

Both Moore and Douglas said Gliniewicz’s case was far outside the norm when it comes to officer suicide.

While there’s little data on the causes of officer suicide, Douglas said he estimates that in the 20 years he’s been monitoring reports of police suicide, more than 90 percent involved issues such as work-related trauma, relationship problems or substance abuse — not misconduct.

“These are not crooked cops. When that lieutenant did what he did, he really wasn’t doing a service to those of us in the field,” Douglas said. “That is the exception, not the rule.”

That means advocates may not need to worry about lawmakers shying away from bills involving police suicide and survivor benefits, said Charles N. Wheeler III, director of the University of Illinois at Springfield’s Public Affairs Reporting program and an expert on state government.

Though some issues can become politically toxic even if they’re smart policy, Wheeler said he doesn’t envision this becoming one of them as long as the bill’s authors are careful about how they draft it.

“The easy way to defuse that criticism would be that if it were drafted in a way so it applied to officers who commit suicide related to the legitimate performance of their duties,” Wheeler said.

Moore said the bill already required a medical professional sign off that the officer’s suicide was the result of their active duty work, not illegal activities on the side.

But he’s not yet sure whether supporters will make another push for the legislation.

“We do try to pick our battles and we have a couple other bills we’re pursuing,” Moore said. “We haven’t picked our priorities yet.”

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