Editor’s note: Suicide is always preventable. If you are having thoughts of suicide or feeling suicidal, please call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline immediately at 988. Counselors are also available to chat at www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org. Remember: You deserve to be supported, and it is never too late to seek help. Speak with someone today.
By Carrie-Ana Carone
Every October, I put up an ofrenda in my home. For those who may not be familiar with it, an ofrenda is a traditional altar associated with Día de los Muertos — a place where photographs, personal belongings, flowers, candles and other meaningful items are displayed to honor and remember loved ones who have died.
For me, it has become something much more personal. My ofrenda is filled with photographs of people I have loved and lost throughout my life. Among those photographs are friends and colleagues from my law enforcement career — people I worked beside, laughed with, trusted and called friends. All of them died by suicide.
Every year, when I put their photographs up, I am reminded of the people they were — not simply how they died. I remember their personalities, their ridiculous jokes, the stories that still make me laugh, the calls we went on, the conversations we had and the friendships that existed outside the badge.
And every year, it is bittersweet.
I am grateful that I knew them. I am honored that I can still remember them. But there is another feeling that inevitably creeps in: guilt.
I start thinking about all the things I wish I had noticed. The signs I wish I had recognized. The conversations I wish I had had. The phone calls I wish I had made. The questions I wish I had asked. And, perhaps most painfully: What if I could have stopped them?
I think many of us in law enforcement know that feeling.
Most of us have lost someone. A coworker. A friend. A partner. A brother or sister in the profession. Someone who seemed fine. Someone who laughed with us. Someone who showed up for work. Someone who may have been struggling in ways we never saw.
And when they are gone, we often turn the investigative skills we spent our careers developing back on ourselves. We search for clues. We reconstruct conversations. We replay memories. We examine things that happened weeks, months or even years earlier.
Was that a sign? Should I have called? Why didn’t I realize something was wrong? What if I had said something different? What if I had just known?
Law enforcement officers are trained to recognize danger. We are trained to observe behavior, assess threats, identify inconsistencies and act when something doesn’t look right. So when someone we know dies by suicide, it can be incredibly difficult to accept that we simply didn’t know.
Because we are used to believing that if we look hard enough, we will find the answer. But grief doesn’t work that way.
Sometimes, there are no answers we can find afterward that would have been visible to us before.
Recently, I was talking to my husband about our ofrenda. Our dog had just passed away, and he asked me where we should keep his ashes. I told him that I thought it would be okay to place them on the ofrenda when I put it up in October, alongside the photographs of the people we love.
As we talked, I told him about the photographs of my law enforcement friends who had died by suicide. I explained that seeing their photographs every year is bittersweet for me. I love seeing them. I love remembering them. But I also find myself thinking about all the things I wish I could have done differently.
That’s when he said something that stopped me. He told me that every year, I tear myself apart over the things I wish I could have done. And then he said something I needed to hear.
He reminded me that the people who think about what they could have done, what they should have noticed or what they wish they had said are often the people who cared deeply. He told me that I am a good person for remembering them. A good person for wishing I could have helped. But wishing I had known more does not mean I actually could have known more.
And then he reminded me of something even more important: I’m not a bad person because of what happened to them.
That distinction matters.
Because grief has a way of making us confuse love with responsibility. We think, If I loved them enough, I should have known.
But that’s not necessarily true. Loving someone doesn’t give us the ability to see inside their mind. Being their friend doesn’t mean we know every battle they are fighting. Working beside someone every day doesn’t mean we know what happens when they go home.
And being a police officer doesn’t make us capable of predicting every crisis or saving everyone we love.
Maybe there were things we could have done differently. Maybe there were conversations we could have had. Maybe there were signs we didn’t recognize. Or maybe there weren’t.
The truth is, we don’t get to go back and find out.
That’s one of the hardest parts of grief. We know the ending now. We didn’t know the ending when we were living the story.
Hindsight is a cruel investigator. It gives us information we didn’t have at the time and then asks us why we didn’t act on it. We look backward with knowledge we didn’t possess when it mattered and judge ourselves as though we should have known then what we know now. But that’s not a fair investigation.
We can wish we had called without knowing that a phone call would have changed anything. We can wish we had asked one more question without knowing what the answer would have been. We can wish we had recognized a warning sign without knowing whether that sign would have led to a different outcome.
We can carry those questions for the rest of our lives. But questions are not proof of responsibility. That’s something I am still learning.
When I look at those photographs on my ofrenda, I don’t want to remember these people only for how they died. I want to remember how they lived. I want to remember the friend who made me laugh. The coworker who made a difficult shift easier. The person who told a ridiculous story at just the right time. The person whose friendship mattered to me. Their deaths are part of their stories, but they are not the entirety of who they were. And neither should the guilt I carry become the entirety of what remains of them.
Maybe that’s what we need to give ourselves permission to do: to remember without blaming ourselves, to mourn without turning grief into an investigation, and to acknowledge the things we wish we had done while accepting that we may never know whether doing them would have changed anything.
We can say, “I wish I had known. I wish I had called. I wish I had asked. I wish I could have helped.”
And then we can say, “But I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I cannot change what I could not see. And I will not spend the rest of my life holding myself responsible for an outcome I cannot know I could have changed.”
There is nothing wrong with wishing we could have changed the past. That’s what grief does. But we cannot spend the rest of our lives prosecuting ourselves for a crime that may exist only in hindsight.
The people whose photographs sit on my ofrenda deserve to be remembered with love — not as a collection of unanswered questions and regrets. And maybe the people left behind deserve that same compassion.
So this October, when I put those photographs back up, I hope I can look at them differently. I hope I can smile at the memories. I hope I can laugh at the stories. I hope I can feel grateful that our paths crossed. And when that familiar voice in my head asks, What if you had done something differently? I hope I can answer: Maybe I could have. Maybe I couldn’t have. I’ll never know.
But I do know this: I cared. I loved them. I remember them. And I don’t have to punish myself for not knowing what I couldn’t know.
Maybe remembering them is enough. Maybe loving them was enough. Maybe carrying their memories forward is one of the greatest things we can still do for them.
Because the people we lose to suicide are not just statistics. They were our partners. Our coworkers. Our friends. Our brothers. Our sisters. They were people who mattered.
And the people left behind matter, too.
So if you’re a law enforcement officer reading this and there is a photograph in your mind — or perhaps one sitting somewhere in your home — that still makes you wonder what if, I hope you give yourself the same grace you would give another officer standing in your shoes. You did not know what you did not know. You cannot change what you could not see. You can wish you had done more without deciding that you were responsible for the outcome. You can miss them without blaming yourself. You can carry the questions without allowing them to become a life sentence.
Laugh about the good times. Say their names. Keep their photographs. Honor the lives they lived. Tell their stories. Remember them for the people they were — not only for the way they died.
We carry our fallen with us, but we don’t have to carry the blame.
Written in memory of Sadie Devine, Rob LaPoint, Cheri Medieros, Michelle Kopacz and Darren Svkoldqvist.
About the author
Carrie-Ana Carone is a retired lieutenant with the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, where she served for more than 22 years, including as head of litigation. She is a graduate of Sacramento State University with a degree in criminal justice and is pursuing her Juris Doctor at Northwestern California University School of Law.
Carone is a published author, guest speaker and certified instructor with experience in investigations, risk management and federal court matters. Her article, “The 80/20 Rule and How It Applies to Corrections,” was published in JAILS, the American Jail Association magazine, in 2021.
