September 30, 2020 • 52 mins
Few know that police officers are at a higher risk of suicide than any other profession, with the number of police officers who die by suicide greater than three times the number of those that were injured in the line of duty. Additionally, the vast majority of officers and soldiers who take their lives do so at home, using their service weapons. To discuss why these rates are so high amongst law enforcement, and what people can do to decrease rates of firearm suicide, host JJ is joined by Brady President Kris Brown and Steve Hough of Blue HELP. Blue HELP is an organization devoted to reducing mental health stigmas through education, to advocate for benefits for those suffering from post-traumatic stress, and to acknowledge the service and sacrifice of law enforcement officers lost to suicide, assist officers in their search for healing, and to bring awareness to suicide and mental health issues.
Mentioned in this podcast:
- The Price They Pay (Solomon, McGill)
- Law Enforcement Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SAMHSA)
- Breaking the Silence: Suicide Prevention for Law Enforcement Video Facilitation Guide (National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention)
For more information on Brady, follow us on social media @Bradybuzz or visit our website at bradyunited.org.
Full transcripts and bibliographies of this episode are available at bradyunited.org/podcast.
Enjoy some treats from Hu's Kitchen, like chocolate free of dairy, gluten, refined sugar, palm oil, and cane sugar!
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255.
Music provided by: David “Drumcrazie” Curby
Special thanks to Hogan Lovells for their long-standing legal support
℗&©2019 Red, Blue, and Brady
For more information on Brady, follow us on social media @Bradybuzz or visit our website at bradyunited.org.
Full transcripts and bibliographies of this episode are available at bradyunited.org/podcast.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255.
In a crisis? Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a Crisis Counselor 24/7.
Music provided by: David “Drumcrazie” Curby
Special thanks to Hogan Lovells for their long-standing legal support
℗&©2019 Red, Blue, and Brady
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
JJ Janflone (00:08):
Hey everybody, this is the legal disclaimer where I
tell you that the views,thoughts and opinions shared on
this podcast belong solely toour guests and hosts, and not
necessarily Brady or Brady'saffiliates. Please note, this
podcast contains discussions ofviolence that some people may
find disturbing. It's okay, wefind it disturbing too.
(00:40):
Hey, everybody, welcome to avery special minisode although I
feel like I say they're allspecial. That's because they
are. They're all special.
Welcome to a minisode of "Red,Blue and Brady." Unfortunately,
Kelly couldn't be with us today.
But I am joined by Bradypresident and Kris Brown, and
Steve Hough. Steve is theSecretary and Treasurer and
co-founder of Blue Help, andBlue Help is a phenomenal
(01:03):
organization, devoted toreducing suicide amongst law
enforcement and firstresponders, and the stigma and
shame surrounding suicide.
Together, we're here to talkabout why it is, in fact, that
we lose law enforcement officersto suicide, in particular to
firearm suicide. We've got a lotto cover, so I'm going to go
(01:24):
ahead and jump off and getstarted by maybe, can I have my
esteemed guests introducethemselves?
Steven Hough (01:31):
Sure. It's, I'm Steven Hough, I am a inspector
with the Walton County Sheriff'sOffice. And I'm a co founder and
actually the secretary right nowof Blue Help. Our organization
is there to help law enforcementofficers overcome that mental
health stigma, and we actuallytrack suicides and work towards
suicide prevention.
JJ Janflone (01:52):
And Kris, just because I love the power trip of
asking my boss to introduceherself, right, do you mind?
Kris Brown (01:58):
Well, I'm happy to do it. For whatever reason, JJ.
I don't judge. I'm Kris Brown.
I'm the president of Brady. AndI'm thrilled to be a part of
this conversation today.
JJ Janflone (02:10):
And I want to go ahead and just start off right
off the bat with, can you maybetell our listeners who might not
be familiar a little bit aboutBlue HELP, what what you all
are?
Steven Hough (02:19):
Sure, Blue HELP actually started back around
2015. It came about from acritical incident myself and my
partner were involved with in2011. We recognized the need for
family support and officersupport during critical
incidents. And it kind ofmorphed from there, to when we
started digging into things alittle bit further, we
(02:42):
understood that there was amissing piece there which was
officers that actually commitsuicide. There's, there was
little to no support. Obviously,there was a dealing with a
mental health stigma there. Andthat's where really Blue
H.E.L.P. came from, and andjumped in. HELP stands for
honor, educate, lead andprevent. So we have different,
our different little mantras forhelping individuals education,
(03:05):
providing that training,prevention, all of those things.
And we just we take our time,and we've, we've gone
nationwide, we've we'veconducted some training across
the United States. We present,we provide the ability for
officers and their families toget in contact with individuals,
maybe if they need counseling,or those types of things,
(03:28):
especially following an officersuicide. We're pretty much there
for anybody that needs that helpto get over that mental health
stigma of being in lawenforcement or being a first
responder.
JJ Janflone (03:38):
And so if this is impertinent of me, and if you're
not comfortable, please feelfree to tell me now, you know,
would you feel comfortablesharing your experiences?
Steven Hough (03:46):
Oh absolutely.
JJ Janflone (03:47):
Because I know that you yourself are a survivor of
gun violence, in addition tobeing a police officer, so so I
think you occupy multipleidentities within this space.
Steven Hough (03:54):
Yes. And that's, and that's one of the reasons
why we, this is one of thereasons why we did Blue
H.E.L.P., right, was becausemyself and my partner, because,
you know, I was the guy thattook the, that got shot. And I
say this when I travel aroundand talk about the shooting, but
I wasn't the only one that gotshot that day, right? A whole
(04:15):
lot of other people got shot. Itook the bullet, but a lot of
people got shot. And what I meanby that is they had their own
traumatic experience from myexperience. So some of the
things that that really I had tocontend with I had to get to
grips with, and I'm going togive a shout out to my wife
Tanya, she was awesome duringthis time, when we were,
(04:38):
probably the first two or threeyears of dealing with this. I
was very withdrawn, I wouldstart to withdraw from family
members, from friends. I evenwithdrew from my son for a
while. Until she pretty much,she almost, it was almost like
she just came up and smacked meon the back of the head and
said, "Hey, you need to knock itoff. You got people out here
that are here for you and carefor you" and we, we've had, we
(05:00):
had to have severalconversations like that, in
making sure that I reboundedcorrectly. There was the, like I
said, the withdrawal issues, theanger issues, there are to this
day, I still have have to dealwith those things. And I
probably will, it's a newnormal, you know, it's one of
these things that I have grownfrom, but I will still have to
(05:23):
contend with it. I had a trachput in so I could breathe when I
got shot in the face, so itbroke the jaw. So every day when
I shave, you know, I'm lookingin the mirror at myself, missing
part of my nose in my, where thetrach used to be. So it's a
constant reminder, every day, ofwhere I was, and where I've gone
(05:47):
since that incident, and I talkabout that all the time, there's
so many more things that we candiscuss. And I know we're
running out of time. But there'sso many more things in the
backside of that story dealingwith family members, and
friends. I received cards frompeople in Alaska. I didn't know
anybody in Alaska, but I wasreceiving cards from them. So
(06:08):
that ripple effect that we weretalking about really came into
play with my recovery and beingable to, to bounce back off of
that.
JJ Janflone (06:17):
I want to thank you so much for sharing that.
Steven Hough (06:20):
Absolutely. And that is no problem. And that's,
and that's what Blue H.E.L.P.'sabout, right? If I can't get up,
if I can't practice what we'repreaching, we've got a problem.
So I, you know, that's just oneof those things. It helps me
tremendously to talk about itand I want to make sure other
other officers, other firstresponders understand, hey,
look, if I can do it, you can doit.
Kris Brown (06:40):
Steven, I just have to say, after listening to that,
I was a little bit speechless.
That is just truly amazing.
Thank you for your service.
Thank you for what you've done,for your community, for public
safety, and thank you for allthat you've done to really
amplify and lift up this issue.
JJ Janflone (07:02):
And I wonder if you could just expand on that a
little bit. From what Iunderstand the group sort of
came out after a book waswritten called "The Price They
Pay?"
Steven Hough (07:11):
That is correct.
So Dr. McGill, Jeff McGill, he'sanother founder, and Karen
Solomon, they got together andwrote a book called "The Price
They Pay." And this is where wereally took off is when the book
was presented. It discussedofficers and their and their
need for assistance, really iswhat it boiled down to, and the
(07:32):
family's assistance. The bookhad several different stories in
it. If you haven't read thebook, I would recommend highly
recommend you read it. It's anexcellent read. Dr. McGill
provided the the actual forwardsfor each chapter. In his, in his
studies for becoming a doctor,he was able to write a couple of
different articles and papersthat were used. And when we,
(07:53):
when the book finally reallycame out and really took off.
That's when Blue H.E.L.P.
started to see a surge. That'swhen we started to notice,
people were reaching out to usfor assistance to help primarily
family members, but then otherofficers came about. Because
(08:15):
there's always a, when we have asuicide, there's always that
ripple effect. And this is oneof the things that we learned
during our during our criticalincident, is that it affects so
many other people that you'renot aware of, until it's there.
And then once it's there you go,"Wow, how do I handle that." And
then the book, of course, whenthose same stories were showing
(08:36):
up repetitively with everybody,everybody kind of has along the
same, I don't want to say thesame story, but the way that
story reads is almost the same,is that individuals are trying
to reach out they're trying toreach out to agencies, they're
trying to reach out to otherofficers and that support just
wasn't there. And that's where,that's where Blue H.E.L.P.
(08:56):
really came into play.
JJ Janflone (08:58):
And on that note, I think, Kris, I would love to
hear your input too, becauseyou, and Brady more broadly, has
been doing, has been present indoing work a lot to prevent
firearm suicide, but especiallyin, I would say, the last two
years. And I'm wondering onBrady's end, why is it so
important to focus on suicideprevention of police officers
(09:19):
and first responders?
Kris Brown (09:21):
JJ, thank you for that question. I mean, I guess,
to just start off, I think thatany anytime I talk about the
issue of firearm suicide, mostAmericans are really surprised
to learn that three out of fivegun deaths in this country,
result from firearm suicide.
That's about 60% of all gundeaths in this country. And we
(09:42):
know through research into thisissue that if we address access
to the firearm, we can savelives. If we think about police
officers in particular, andtheir exposure to risk, the
trauma that they experienceday-to-day in and out of their
(10:03):
job, police officers are at ahigher risk of suicide than any
other profession. Suicide is soprevalent right now in the
profession, that the number ofpolice officers who died by
suicide is more than triple thatof officers who were fatally
injured in the line of duty.
(10:24):
That's really stark, if youthink about that. And I think
it's something that, you know,most Americans would be shocked
about. Researchers areattributing these statistics to
the unique combination of easyaccess to deadly weapons. Of
course, most officers are issuedservice weapons that they keep
at home. So that's part of theaccess issue. The stress of the
(10:47):
job, extremely intense stress,if you think about the stress
that each of us have on aday-to-day basis in our job, and
understand that few of us areactually really putting
ourselves in harm's way, butmost of them are. And then, of
course, the devastation thatpolice are exposed to on a daily
basis. And that's what thebackdrop that I understand many
(11:09):
of our listeners who are adamantand really believe that police
reform is necessary. None ofthat is taking any of that away.
But I think all of us understandthat many, many, many good
people are drawn to thisprofession and are truly putting
themselves on the line everysingle day and carrying that
(11:30):
out. And the stress and theimpact of that on their lives is
very real. Just to give a little bit more
statistics, and I don't want todo too many of these, JJ, but I
think it's important tounderstand that if you look at
2018, which is the most recentdata set that we have, the
calendar year 2018, about 167law enforcement officers died by
(11:54):
suicide. That number isprojected to increase during
2019. And as of August of thisyear, of 2020, a total of 134
officers have committed suicidewith four months of the year
still left and unaccounted for.
(12:14):
Obviously, that seems to betrending higher than even the
prior year. Many who are lookingat this, don't think that this
these numbers reflect the truenumber of suicide, as some
families choose not to reportthe cause of death as suicide, o
instead transcribe the death asaccidental. And I'm sure, JJ,
(12:38):
you're gonna help us understandwhy that is. And there's no
judgment there. It's just simplya fact. That's why from my
perspective, Brady's End FamilyFire program is so critically
important. That obviously is ourprogram that combats "famil
fire," that's the unintentionl injury or death of a loved o
(12:58):
e with a gun, with an unsecuredun in the home, that campa
gn details and seeks to prevnt family fire. And we h
ve launched now a second phaseof this campaign, focusing sol
ly on combating suicide. And I'mso happy we're having t
is conversation now becaue obviously, the suicide rates
(13:22):
f law enforcement officerss something we should all
e alarmed by, and something allf us should be working very, ve
y hard to combat. AndI personally, and I know y
u agree, believe that the Endamily Fire program can have a s
ecial place and lifting up allf our consciousness about that,
nd to make a big dent in this pr
JJ Janflone (13:43):
I'm actually excited that you brought up all
of the stats because, in alittle bit, I'm going to talk
about why Blue H.E.L.P. is oneof the few groups out there that
has the stats. So you really youintroduced something there too,
in addition to a lot of really,really important information
that I think our listenersneeded to know.
Kris Brown (13:59):
Happy to. Yeah.
JJ Janflone (14:01):
And so Steven to push over to you. I wondering if
if we could talk a little bitabout some of what I think Kris
mentioned, which is and what Ibrought up. Which is that, I, a
lot of people don't seem to knowwhat police officers actually
interact with on a daily basis,and that so many unfortunately,
we lose to suicide.
Steven Hough (14:22):
Well, and one of the one of the things that Kris
said, to follow up on what Krissaid about good people joining
the profession. What we're, alot of times what we see is we
see individuals that that joinfor the noblest of reasons that
they truly want to get out thereand help people, they truly want
(14:42):
to make a difference and theywant to be, they want to be part
of that greater good. And whenour officers go out there and
they start accumulating this,this stress that they that
they're getting put under it's,it's primarily on a, it's the
daily interactions with thosetypes of incidents that go on
all the time that a lot of timesmost folks don't know or, or
(15:06):
understand exactly what'shappening, you know. When you
got officers responding todomestic violence calls, or
child abuse calls, or fatalitiesof some kind, of one type or
another, and this is going onfor, you know, it could, it
could run every day for a week,or it could happen once a month.
But the bottom line is, is overthe, over time, in dealing with
(15:29):
those stressors, it just wearspeople down. The the idea, and
the notion behind being a lawenforcement officer is is great.
I mean, I love being I lovebeing a cop, as do most
everybody else that I know thathas been in law enforcement. But
when you start seeing thosestressors start to affect people
(15:50):
in the sense that when they gohome, and they just, they just
kind of want to crawl into alittle hole and hide away from
people. Because let's face it,we as as law enforcement, we're
not superhuman, we deal with thesame stressors that everybody
else has to deal with at home,except when we're at work, we
have to go help people deal withtheir stressors. So when we get
(16:12):
home, we don't want to have todeal with that. We don't want to
have to be burdened with littleJimmy who didn't do well on his
schoolwork or, you know, tryingto figure out what to do for
dinner, or have to deal with thein-laws coming into town, or
whatever the case it may be.
These are things that we want tocompartmentalize, and we want to
put it away. So it's it'simportant for everybody to
(16:34):
understand that, you know, theselaw enforcement officers, kind
of like what we were talkingabout earlier, they deal with
those things that you don't wantto deal with in your bubble. For
the majority of folks out there,they're happy and content, as
long as whatever it is, isn'taffecting them. And that's
that's just the way people are.
But we have to go in and have totake care of, either sometimes
(16:57):
be a social worker, sometimes bea an EMT, or another first
responder of some type. Andsometimes we've got to go in
unfortunately have to use thatdeadly force to to quell a
situation. So when when peoplehave a hard time understanding
why law enforcement officersare, why we see these numbers of
so many officers committingsuicide, it's, it's really, it's
(17:22):
really kind of hard. And that'swhat Blue H.E.L.P. has worked
on, is putting that informationout there. Just like when we
talked about the book earlier,this gives a, gives you a view
into the world of some of theselaw enforcement officers. And
you're talking about 800,000people at this point, 800,000,
strong and law enforcement. Soit's a difficult task to be able
to put that out there for forthe general public to understand
(17:44):
say, "hey, look, this is exactlywhat we're going through." And
this is exactly why the guy thatstarted five years ago, who was
so happy and ready to save theworld, is now having a difficult
time dealing with it.
Kris Brown (17:56):
I've been very interested, obviously, in my
work, and and I do a lot ofreading on the issue of trauma.
And if I think about America,having lived overseas before, I
think that gun violence in themanner, the ways in which it's
(18:16):
carried out, how common it is,is creating huge amounts of
trauma in communities acrossthis country. And certainly
those on the front lines, policeofficers experienced that in a
unique way compared to manyother Americans, but not in a
(18:36):
unique way compared to someAmericans who live in
communities who experienceeveryday gun violence. I'm very
curious about how you thinkabout this as someone who has
served in this way. I read anarticle a couple of weeks ago
that talked about Post TraumaticStress Disorder, which of course
(18:58):
is an actual diagnosis,something that folks who are
suffering from PTSD can bediagnosed with. And one of the
things that the article noted ispeople who are living in
communities that experienceevery day gun violence, actually
don't have a post traumaticstress disorder, compared to
(19:20):
those who perhaps have been incombat and left combat, and are
living in kind of differentcircumstances safe and away from
the things that caused thetrauma. For many of these
people, they're experiencingperpetual, right, not post, but
perpetual traumatic stressdisorder. And I wonder how you
(19:44):
think about that thought ornotion or idea and what you
might comment on that from yourown work, with with police
officers, who have their ownversion professionally of PTSD,
and your thoughts about that.
Steven Hough (20:01):
So, first off, I agree wholeheartedly with what
you said. There is no doubt thatin my 25 years of working law
enforcement, and even I work inthe panhandle of Florida, so the
areas or the counties that I'veworked in, there are areas that
are, they're not as violent. Butyou can, you can definitely
(20:26):
understand there's a differentway of living when it comes to
being there, right. So it's likeyou turn down a road, and we
step back in time. So, or weturn down a road, in some places
I've seen, we turn down a roadand it looks like something yo
might see from overseas inthird world country. So there i
(20:50):
no doubt that individuals tha, that live in these areas an
, and not to say everybody tht that lives there may have th
t perpetual stressor. But it isa different feel, when you liv
in an area where gunshots argoing off maybe every othe
night, or, or in some placelike maybe Chicago or some othe
(21:13):
bigger, larger cities that havreally, really big areas wher
individuals are living ipoverty, or living below tho
e means, and drugs or other cries are way of life. You know,
hat there is there's withoutoubt that these people are
(21:36):
eeling this. From the timehey're, they're young, till,
ill they're, till they're older.
I mean, I've talked with plentyof grandmas and grandpas who
back in the day, they wererunning those streets pretty
hard. And we used to be able tosit down and talk about that and
laugh about it. But the realitybehind it is, is the stressors
are there. But at the same time,you've got to take a look at it
(21:56):
from like, let's say, ourperspective, your perspective
and my perspective. We can godown there and work there for
eight hours, twelve hours outf a day, but then we come out of
it and we go live our life withur family in a nice house or in
an apartment or whatever. Andwe don't have to contend with t
(22:16):
at day after day. Do they buildup resiliency to that? Absolut
ly they do they still haveto contend with the stressors
of living in an environment lke that. Absolutely they
o. There's no question about
Kris Brown (22:30):
I appreciate that.
And I think that that'ssomething that, frankly, in our
society isn't discussed enough.
Because if you think abouttrauma and understand trauma
that has a profound impact onpeople's lives. And I think
that's part of the reason why wehave to approach the gun
(22:52):
violence epidemic, the 40,000people a year who lose their
lives, the more than 80,000others who are injured and then
have to live with those injuriesfor the rest of their lives --
as a public health epidemic. Ithink if we did that, we would
have a very different approachto helping individuals and
communities actually experiencewhat we say is the "American
(23:16):
Dream," right? That everyindividual has the opportunity
to move forward to excel intheir world. It's a lot harder
to do that, let's face that, ifyou're living in a community
riddled with gun violence, thanif you're not. And so I think
it's important to think about itthat way. And I appreciate your
(23:38):
your insight as someone who is apolice officer around this,
tremendously, in that regard.
JJ Janflone (23:45):
And and so sort of on that note, too, because this,
this got brought up about how Ithink because Kris, I think a
lot of what you're talkingabout, when you're talking, and
you too Steven, is that whenyou're talking about stigma and
what people interact with, isthere's not a lot of
transparency. I think a lot ofpeople in the US still feel
really uncomfortable talkingabout suicide.
Kris Brown (24:05):
Yeah.
JJ Janflone (24:05):
I think I think right now, having conversations
about policing are reallyuncomfortable for a lot of
people.
Kris Brown (24:10):
Yeah.
JJ Janflone (24:11):
And so I think when you combine all those things
together, it leads to a lot ofawkwardness and a lot of fear.
And then there's this addedlayer to it, which is you know,
so Blue H.E.L.P. is devoted tocollecting data on police
officer, well lawenforcement/first responder
suicides, but why has theorganization had to have taken
(24:33):
on that tracking?
Steven Hough (24:34):
So it was, obviously when we decided, "hey,
look, we need to look at theseofficers who have who have
committed suicide," we need tounderstand the totality of what
we're dealing with here. This isanother one of those epiphanies
that we had as we started movingfrom probably around 2013 or 14,
into 15. When we actually said"hey, look, we're collecting
(24:57):
this data." We actually went inand we were like, "Hey, we can't
fix what what we don't know." Sothat's when the that's when we
started saying, look, there'swebsites out there, ODMP
(Officer Down Memorial Page) isout there tracking officers who
were killed in the line of duty.
We've got the FBI tracking, notonly that, but officers
feloniously assaulted everyyear. But then we noticed nobody
(25:18):
was tracking the number ofofficers that are, are
committing suicide. So at thatpoint, that's when we made our
determination, hey, we've got totake a look at these numbers to
see what exactly is going on. Tobetter understand, we can't help
if we don't know, the fullextent of the the, the, the
(25:39):
entire, the totality ofeverything that we're dealing
with.
So in 2015, that's when westarted collecting our data. Our
numbers are on our website,BlueHELP.org, we've got our
numbers laid out consistently.
And they been fairly consistentfrom, there's a little bit of
fluctuation in the numbersbetween 2015 and last year. Last
(26:01):
year, we saw that big spike.
We're at, I think now we're at235 for last year, those numbers
continuously grow as more peoplereport. So the numbers are,
once, we're getting to a pointnow where our actual data is
going to start to be able totell us, give us an idea, a map,
(26:24):
so-to-speak, of of what we'redealing with, and why some of
these things are happening. It'sover 20/25 collection points at
this point. So we're askingindividuals to report all types
of information so we can see,get a better understanding of
"why?" We know a majority of ithas to deal with that stigma
(26:45):
that machismo, if you will. Thatofficers are not supposed to,
we're there to take care ofpeople, nobody needs to take
care of us. And that's where ourofficers are getting into
trouble is they're just, I don'twant to say they're afraid. But
hey, look, we're the cops, we'resupposed to be taking care of
folks, nobody should need totake care of us. And the numbers
are pointing us in directions,just so we we have a better
(27:10):
grasp of, of was there otheroutside influences on on the
mental health of that officer atthat time?
JJ Janflone (27:19):
You know, it's strange, because you saying, you
know "what we don't know, wecan't fix" is something that
I've literally heard Kris say?
Steven Hough (27:27):
Yes.
JJ Janflone (27:27):
Because there's just so little data about gun
violence there, period.
Steven Hough (27:32):
Exactly. And I mean, even even to take it that
step further, I think Kris waswanting to talk about, or you
asked, about why officers, themajority of officers that commit
suicide is by a firearm. Andthis is one of those things that
that data helps support, ithelps to sit there and say, hey,
look, yes. Are they committingsuicide by other means?
(27:54):
Absolutely. The majority is, isby firearm. Now, we don't, we
don't collect any information asfar as was it service weapon or
anything like that. At thispoint, that's, that's really
irrelevant. If if it's, if theycomplete suicide by firearm,
that's what they did. And thesesorts of things between that and
(28:17):
other, other data points that wecan grab, help kind of guide us,
if we're going to put ontraining, or if we're going to
go talk to an agency, or anofficer that may need help. That
kind of stuff really helps usout in where Blue H.E.L.P. is
going to go.
Kris Brown (28:34):
I have to say as an American as an as someone who
leads a gun violence preventionorganization, I would say that
most Americans when asked, likeso many sub issues related to
the cause of gun violenceprevention, would really be
alarmed at what Steven istelling us here, which is that
(28:55):
basically no federal agencykeeps an official count of how
many law enforcement officerscommit suicide each year. That
strikes me as really not good.
When we know that most officersdie of suicide, at a much higher
rate than die of shootings andtraffic accidents combined. It
(29:17):
just leaves me incredulous. Idon't understand. It's a problem
that cries out for betteranswers, and remedies. And I
feel like I don't understand whywe're not doing better by those
who are serving us. And Steven,you must feel this way. And I
(29:39):
just have to say, you know, onthis podcast, thank you. Thank
you so much for what you aredoing to draw attention to this,
but I wish that you had moresupport in our government, to
help those who are puttingthemselves on the line to really
combat this.
Steven Hough (30:00):
Times are changing, right. So we know, as
a as an organization, we knowthat there are now, bills being
introduced, there's legislationbeing introduced, that is
requiring agencies or federalagencies to start tracking this
information. So is it scary toknow it has never been tracked?
Absolutely. Are we thankful thatbecause, of course, what we
(30:25):
believe, is that our work haskind of propelled this to a
forefront, where people arefinally starting to take notice
and starting to say, "hey, look,this is this is a real problem."
And we, we need to figure out,just like Blue H.E.L.P. did, it
JJ Janflone (30:40):
And I wonder in terms of, sort of, steps in the
started with an Excelspreadsheet tracking these
officers, you know. It's timefor other entities, other
governmental agencies, or evenlocal and state agencies to
start tracking within their ownpurview. And and seeing exactly
what we're dealing with here. Weknow that those numbers that are
(31:03):
being reported are low. We knowthat those, just as you said
earlier, that officers are notbeing reported because of family
members, either A (31:13):
they're just not ready to report, and that's
and that's totally respectable.
The loss of a loved one is istremendous. And I couldn't
imagine going through goingthrough some of these things
that our families have gonethrough. But the other thing is,
is the agencies, some of theagencies try and keep this
quiet. You know, there's other,there's other things behind it,
(31:35):
that it just doesn't come to theforefront. So having, having th
bills and the legislation outhere now, that's saying, "he
, look, you guys have got to stat tracking it." It's definitel
a step in the right directiright direction, I'm wondering
if you could talk a little bitabout some of the things that
Blue H.E.L.P. has, has done tohelp make these conversations a
(31:59):
little bit easier, to makeofficers view, either asking for
help, or for their familymembers or for their partners.
Because, as you and I weretalking about before we started
rolling, you know, for for a lotof people in law enforcement,
their "work family," you know,becomes their family. Kris has
an experience that happens withnonprofits too, at least gun
violence prevention nonprofits,where you, you're at the office
(32:21):
a lot. But you end up you form afamily, and so people reaching
out to say that, you know, "I'mworried about my partner." I'm
wondering if you could talk alittle bit about how to reduce
that stigma, so that more peopleget to come home and stay safe.
Steven Hough (32:37):
One of the biggest ways obviously, that we that
we've come across is, you wouldbe actually kind of surprised
that when we do conferences, orwe do, we'll go talk with
agencies, once it's out there,that other individuals are
having the the same difficultiesat work, due to, you know, just
(33:01):
the stressors of everything, itreally kind of takes on, it
manifests itself and otherofficers come forward. Just to
use that example we were talkingabout before we started, before
we started really talking, when,when we were involved in that,
that shooting, one of the thingsthat a group of us would do is
we just get together just to seehow each other were doing. And
(33:22):
what we started talking aboutwere the same things. How one of
us would get angry, for noreason, or one of us would be in
the middle of a store andtotally forget what they were
doing or, you know. So in andamongst my little group, there
were discussions going on that,for lack of a better term, were
like debriefings. So we wereliterally talking about all
(33:46):
these things that bothered us.
And when you put other officersin front of a group of officers,
you can surely expect at least ahandful of them to come forward
and say, "hey, look, I've beendoing the same thing", or "I've
been feeling the same way." Andthen that's where we can step in
and say, hey, we've got apartnership over here we can let
(34:06):
me see if we can help you out.
Or, hey, we've got Camp Aprilcoming up where the kids can
attend and the family memberscan get together and mourn
together. It's this, this wholething about coming together and
doing your debriefings, andhaving those family members
together. Blue family or yourhome family, is nothing new. You
(34:31):
know, many times we discuss andI've discussed this with Jeff
many-a-time, about the theaterof war. There's a play that was
put on about Ajax, is a Greekgeneral, that was he was having
problems, mental healthproblems, and this was way back
(34:52):
in, this was this is we'retalking history, long history
ago, that we talked about thesethings were If people would just
come forward individuals,officers, guys out in the field,
as far as being overseas inbattle, if they come forward and
talk, it will make you feelbetter. This is nothing new.
(35:14):
It's, but same thing is, thestigma is not new. The stigma
has always been there. And whatwe have found is, as we put more
information up on our socialmedia websites, Instagram, we
talk to other officers and go,"hey, look, yeah, we've had some
of those problems as well," westart to see that kind of come
to the forefront. And that'swhere we're at now we're getting
(35:36):
such a, I don't want to say sucha following, but the
understanding of, hey, look,it's okay to start talking about
this, is one that is moved tothe forefront. Now we've got a
new, as you were saying you'rean older millennial, right?
We've got
JJ Janflone (35:54):
I believe elder millenial was my term.
Steven Hough (35:55):
Elder, ok elder.
So we've got, you know, we'vegot a new group of law
enforcement coming in. It's notlike, not like me, I stayed in
one place for for 25, you know,20 years, and then moved to
another agency. Your dad stayedin one place for a long time,
(36:16):
and, and didn't move. And theseindividuals are all about moving
around and staying in the sameprofession, but doing different
things. They're also, what we'venoticed, is they're more apt to
talk about things that botherthem, then my age group, or
perhaps the age group below me.
So we're starting to see adifference in the the type of
(36:39):
officer that's coming in. Andthat's also helping to bring
that stigma to a forefrontbecause they've already been
used to talking about issuesthat they may have dealt with,
maybe not even as a lawenforcement officer, just maybe
dealing with home life, orschool life or whatever was
going on at the time, in theirin their lives. So we're
definitely starting to see thatshift. But it's, we're far from
(37:02):
being done, far from it.
JJ Janflone (37:03):
I wonder, if you do you think that there will ever
be a shift to in, sort of,officers and you know, taking
their, their their guns homewith them. So because that's, I
think, you know, the elephant inthe room that we think we're
talking about, because so manyofficers, when they do die from
suicide, they die from firearmsuicide, and they do so with
(37:23):
their servicee weapon. And I'mwondering, do you think that
there ever be a shift in sort ofhow people talk about storing
their service weapons whenthey're when they're at home? Or
if they own, you know, I'll behonest, every cop I've ever met,
has owned multiple guns, youknow, storing storing their
other weapons and in a differentway. Do you think that people
are open to having thatparticular conversation? Or do
(37:45):
you think it's, it's sort ofmore of a different conversation
that needs to be more focused onmental health and safe storage,
as opposed to maybe safe storagefirst?
Steven Hough (37:52):
I would say it's a it's a good healthy combination
of both. So I will tell you, asyour as you are familiar, and
I'm sure Ms. Kris is familiar,the majority of your law
enforcement officers would wouldpush towards the side of, of a
mental health concern ratherthan a firearms concern, and
that's just the way our beliefsare. Now there are going to be
(38:14):
officers out there that sidewith saying, "hey, look, we need
to do better about putting ourarms away." Or if we're having
an episode of some type of panicattack, or we're starting to
feel like we're, we're having aproblem with that mental health,
that, hey, those guns are putaway immediately. Now, Also,
(38:35):
keep in mind, though, we've gotover 18,000 law enforcement
agencies in the United States,and quite a few of them require
their officers to leave thoseweapons. Either they come out of
uniform, they may leave theirweapons at the station, or they
may lock them away in a certainspace. Some, you know, some
agencies just won't even lettheir people wear their uniforms
(38:57):
home. So that is that, andthat's been going on for quite a
while. So there is thatconversation on that side of the
house that's saying, hey, look,we've got to take better care of
our officers, as far as toseparate that a work from home
kind of thing. The the flip sideof that with with the firearms
(39:20):
issue is it's, it's a, a bighill to climb. I'll say that.
Because you've got myself and,as you pointed out, other
officers that own multipleweapons at the home, and even
some of, like I said, some ofour officers though they chose
(39:40):
not, they chose a different wayto to commit that suicide. So
you're going to have an argumenton one side of the house that
says, "hey, this is readilyavailable. If this gets taken
away, they'll find another wayto do it." And then we're going
to have folks on the other sideof the house that say "hey,
look, if we take better care ofour officers, this becomes a non
(40:04):
issue." If we provide ourofficers with the ability to, to
discuss those things that arereally bothering them and take
care of their mental health,then the other issue becomes a
moot point. So that's that'skind of a, you know, you're
almost in a catch 22,so-to-speak situation. Half of
(40:25):
your officers, or some of yourofficers, are going to side one
way, and some of your officersare going to side another way.
Kris Brown (40:30):
The issue that we know from the work that we've
done, which has taken about 15months to craft, the End Family
Fire campaign focused on suicideprevention, in particular. And
we talk to law enforcementofficers and veterans as part of
this process is, ultimately,everyone agrees that the
(40:54):
prevention of suicide is a toppriority issue. The issue we
have in our country is amisunderstanding, it's, it's
sad, because it's just so basic,that the means matter. If you
have easy access to guns in thehome, and what does that mean?
(41:15):
That means a loaded, unsecuredweapon in your kitchen drawer,
in your bedside table, in yourfront drawer, anywhere in the
home, that is a means to suicidethat is unobstructed. And what
most people don't know, and wewe know, this writ large for
(41:38):
many communities, and I don'tthink law enforcement are immune
to this is that means and accessmatter. So if you can find ways
or barriers to get access tothat loaded unsecured weapon,
you have the opportunity to savea life. And when I talk about
(42:02):
this, I think about the manypeople that I have talked to
who've lost loved ones to gunsuicide, and that is a pain you
can never get back. And for mostof these people, this is not
something that they plotted andplanned over a long period of
time, it was a situationalcrisis, and access to something
(42:28):
that is decidedly lethal.
And I don't want to put morestatistics in front of people.
But I think this is important tonote. Because really, there are
a few things in life where youcan find a more stark statistic.
If you have a gun that isloaded, and unlocked and
unsecured, and you have accessto it, and you complete a
(42:51):
suicide, 90% of the time orattempt suicide 90% of the time,
you will complete that suicide,that's nine out of 10. Think
about that. That's compared toevery other means of suicide,
where on average 3%. And justfor the people who want, you
(43:15):
know, the full facts, thatdoesn't mean nine out of 10,
that means point 03 out of 10.
That means out of 100 we'retalking about three people. And
out of 100 it means 90% of thepeople with a gun, 90. What
we're saying here is the gunmatters. And what I really want
(43:38):
to drive home too is, access tothe gun matters, and that means
everyone in the home. So if youhave someone who's at risk,
please make sure that the gun isunloaded, that it's secured,
meaning safe, away fromeveryone. And that ammo is also
(43:58):
away. That is criticallyimportant. We don't want people
yo have easy access to guns ifthey're high risk. And what
we've heard from Steven is theremay be particular instances in
which that happens, and so weall have to work together. This
is just like designated driver,secondhand smoke, other kinds of
(44:23):
campaigns. Family fire is reallyfocused on making sure that all
of us understand the risks ofloaded, unlocked unsecured guns
in the home, and the very basicthings we can do. It's not anti
gun at all. Just securing thatgun in the home, all guns in the
(44:44):
home, can save you can save thepeople who are on the front
lines of protecting yourcommunity, law enforcement
officers everyone. I can'tunderstate it
Steven Hough (44:57):
Along the lines of the weapons, you know, I'm a uh,
I wouldn't say that I'm a biggun guy, but I have multiple
weapons, and I've always trainedwith them, and I've always made
sure to understand, you know, afirearm is a tool, and you got
to know how to use the toolproperly. Just like you said,
(45:18):
with the driving, I was going touse the same thing. Just like
with a vehicle, you've got toknow how to drive your vehicle
properly, or you're going to,you know, that's, you can wind
up in the same situations. Now,when it comes to, as you said,
about folks who are at risk,absolutely. I couldn't agree
with that more. If you know,somebody that is having a
difficult time, and there'smultiple weapons around the
(45:39):
house, you would be remiss ifyou did not take those actions
to, to mitigate thatpossibility. But, and especially
with with law enforcementofficers, and this is again,
this is goes right back to theto that stigma that we've been
talking about all day is, youknow, how bad it is, we don't
(46:01):
know, or the family doesn'tknow, because the officer wants
to maintain that control. Theywant, they have that, they do it
12 hours out of a day, they feellike they should be able to do
it at home. And without questionthat if if we know there are
things going on, securing thoseweapons securing, and I say
(46:22):
weapons, I mean, obviously ourcrux here is guns, but any of
the weapons that can be used forto cause harm to yourself, you
need to be aware of, you need tobe cognizant of it so that you
can take the necessary steps toprotect your loved ones. These
are things that can get workedthrough with the proper, with
proper counseling or talkingwith other individuals. I can't
(46:46):
tell you how many guys have cometo us and just once they've
gotten it off their chest, theyfeel better, and then they're
in, they get in the right frameof mind, and then we move
forward with helping them betterunderstand that resiliency and
build that resiliency up, tomove forward in their lives. So
securing that and stopping thatone harsh decision. Absolutely.
(47:08):
I don't know that anybody woulddisagree with that.
JJ Janflone (47:11):
And on that note, so Steven, you've been amazing.
And I hope you come back. I'mgoing to ask you on air so that
you feel you feel guilty andlike you have to.
Okay,It's a psychological ploy. She's
good at it.
I told you 13 year old girlskills, I'm going to be
emotionally manipulate
Steven Hough (47:29):
Oh, dang. Okay
JJ Janflone (47:32):
But so I mean, I think we have to have you back.
Because this is I think the verybeginning, you know, have a much
longer conversation, that, thatall groups who are interacting
in this space need to be havingback and forth with each other.
You know, I think because themore we talk, the more people
can hear, have an opportunity tohear, and the more people hear,
the more they have anopportunity to listen. But as
(47:52):
our time is drawing to a close,I'm wondering if there's
anything that you would want toshare with listeners here, who
if they are worried aboutthemselves or others, you know,
where can they find BlueH.E.L.P.? And where can they
find assistance?
Steven Hough (48:05):
Gotcha. Well, I can tell you that you could find
blue help just about anywhere atthis point. So you could go to
BlueHELP.org. You'll see a listof our of our sponsors, as well
as our partnerships that we havewith individuals. You can find
us anywhere on social media. Asa matter of fact, I would
encourage you, if you would. Ifyou put notes in your podcast,
(48:30):
put my email out there. Ifsomebody wants to contact me, or
they want to contact BlueH.E.L.P., they can do that at
contact BlueHELP.org. Thebiggest thing that I can tell
you is in, and I said this theother day, was the majority of
what we're seeing our lawenforcement officers, our guys
and gals going through right nowthe stressors that they are
(48:51):
dealing with, are, are overcomewith, you can definitely
overcome it. There's a lot ofpush in the media right now to
shed bad light on lawenforcement and that weighs
heavily on our folks out thereon the streets to actually doing
the job, doing doing the workthat nobody else wants to do.
Stay positive, and if you needthat help, reach out to us. And
(49:15):
we can definitely, if we can'thelp you, we're going to put
you, we're going to put you withsomebody that can. And to the
families that have lost lovedones to suicide, first responder
suicide, please contact us,we're more than happy. We send
out care packages all the time,to the families of lost loved
(49:36):
ones, just to let them know,hey, somebody is thinking about
you and we're here to help. So Iwould encourage anybody that is
listening to the podcast, hey,if if you know of a first
responder that is the need ofassistance, give us a call.
Kris Brown (49:50):
I also want to say to all of you listening today
that for those of you who wantto get involved, who care about
Brady, and what Steven is doing,please go to our website,
Bradyunited.org. And also if youwant more information, you can
find their information about theEnd Family Fire campaign that we
(50:12):
talked about throughout thiswebcast. It's a critical life
saving campaign really focused,not only on ensuring that
children aren't injuredunintentionally with guns in
their home, but also reducingthe risk of suicide. So if you
want to get more information,please go to Bradyunited.org or
(50:35):
EndFamilyFire.org.
JJ Janflone (50:39):
Are you interested in sharing with the podcast?
Listeners can get in touch withus here at "Red, Blue and Brady"
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(51:02):
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Thanks for listening. As always,Brady's life saving work and
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(51:22):
is made possible thanks to you.
For more information on Brady orhow to get involved in the fight
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sides.
Hey everybody, this is the legal disclaimer where I
tell you that the views,thoughts and opinions shared on
this podcast belong solely toour guests and hosts, and not
necessarily Brady or Brady'saffiliates. Please note, this
podcast contains discussions ofviolence that some people may
find disturbing. It's okay, wefind it disturbing too.
(00:40):
Hey, everybody, welcome to avery special minisode although I
feel like I say they're allspecial. That's because they
are. They're all special.
Welcome to a minisode of "Red,Blue and Brady." Unfortunately,
Kelly couldn't be with us today.
But I am joined by Bradypresident and Kris Brown, and
Steve Hough. Steve is theSecretary and Treasurer and
co-founder of Blue Help, andBlue Help is a phenomenal
(01:03):
organization, devoted toreducing suicide amongst law
enforcement and firstresponders, and the stigma and
shame surrounding suicide.
Together, we're here to talkabout why it is, in fact, that
we lose law enforcement officersto suicide, in particular to
firearm suicide. We've got a lotto cover, so I'm going to go
(01:24):
ahead and jump off and getstarted by maybe, can I have my
esteemed guests introducethemselves?
Steven Hough (01:31):
Sure. It's, I'm Steven Hough, I am a inspector
with the Walton County Sheriff'sOffice. And I'm a co founder and
actually the secretary right nowof Blue Help. Our organization
is there to help law enforcementofficers overcome that mental
health stigma, and we actuallytrack suicides and work towards
suicide prevention.
JJ Janflone (01:52):
And Kris, just because I love the power trip of
asking my boss to introduceherself, right, do you mind?
Kris Brown (01:58):
Well, I'm happy to do it. For whatever reason, JJ.
I don't judge. I'm Kris Brown.
I'm the president of Brady. AndI'm thrilled to be a part of
this conversation today.
JJ Janflone (02:10):
And I want to go ahead and just start off right
off the bat with, can you maybetell our listeners who might not
be familiar a little bit aboutBlue HELP, what what you all
are?
Steven Hough (02:19):
Sure, Blue HELP actually started back around
2015. It came about from acritical incident myself and my
partner were involved with in2011. We recognized the need for
family support and officersupport during critical
incidents. And it kind ofmorphed from there, to when we
started digging into things alittle bit further, we
(02:42):
understood that there was amissing piece there which was
officers that actually commitsuicide. There's, there was
little to no support. Obviously,there was a dealing with a
mental health stigma there. Andthat's where really Blue
H.E.L.P. came from, and andjumped in. HELP stands for
honor, educate, lead andprevent. So we have different,
our different little mantras forhelping individuals education,
(03:05):
providing that training,prevention, all of those things.
And we just we take our time,and we've, we've gone
nationwide, we've we'veconducted some training across
the United States. We present,we provide the ability for
officers and their families toget in contact with individuals,
maybe if they need counseling,or those types of things,
(03:28):
especially following an officersuicide. We're pretty much there
for anybody that needs that helpto get over that mental health
stigma of being in lawenforcement or being a first
responder.
JJ Janflone (03:38):
And so if this is impertinent of me, and if you're
not comfortable, please feelfree to tell me now, you know,
would you feel comfortablesharing your experiences?
Steven Hough (03:46):
Oh absolutely.
JJ Janflone (03:47):
Because I know that you yourself are a survivor of
gun violence, in addition tobeing a police officer, so so I
think you occupy multipleidentities within this space.
Steven Hough (03:54):
Yes. And that's, and that's one of the reasons
why we, this is one of thereasons why we did Blue
H.E.L.P., right, was becausemyself and my partner, because,
you know, I was the guy thattook the, that got shot. And I
say this when I travel aroundand talk about the shooting, but
I wasn't the only one that gotshot that day, right? A whole
(04:15):
lot of other people got shot. Itook the bullet, but a lot of
people got shot. And what I meanby that is they had their own
traumatic experience from myexperience. So some of the
things that that really I had tocontend with I had to get to
grips with, and I'm going togive a shout out to my wife
Tanya, she was awesome duringthis time, when we were,
(04:38):
probably the first two or threeyears of dealing with this. I
was very withdrawn, I wouldstart to withdraw from family
members, from friends. I evenwithdrew from my son for a
while. Until she pretty much,she almost, it was almost like
she just came up and smacked meon the back of the head and
said, "Hey, you need to knock itoff. You got people out here
that are here for you and carefor you" and we, we've had, we
(05:00):
had to have severalconversations like that, in
making sure that I reboundedcorrectly. There was the, like I
said, the withdrawal issues, theanger issues, there are to this
day, I still have have to dealwith those things. And I
probably will, it's a newnormal, you know, it's one of
these things that I have grownfrom, but I will still have to
(05:23):
contend with it. I had a trachput in so I could breathe when I
got shot in the face, so itbroke the jaw. So every day when
I shave, you know, I'm lookingin the mirror at myself, missing
part of my nose in my, where thetrach used to be. So it's a
constant reminder, every day, ofwhere I was, and where I've gone
(05:47):
since that incident, and I talkabout that all the time, there's
so many more things that we candiscuss. And I know we're
running out of time. But there'sso many more things in the
backside of that story dealingwith family members, and
friends. I received cards frompeople in Alaska. I didn't know
anybody in Alaska, but I wasreceiving cards from them. So
(06:08):
that ripple effect that we weretalking about really came into
play with my recovery and beingable to, to bounce back off of
that.
JJ Janflone (06:17):
I want to thank you so much for sharing that.
Steven Hough (06:20):
Absolutely. And that is no problem. And that's,
and that's what Blue H.E.L.P.'sabout, right? If I can't get up,
if I can't practice what we'repreaching, we've got a problem.
So I, you know, that's just oneof those things. It helps me
tremendously to talk about itand I want to make sure other
other officers, other firstresponders understand, hey,
look, if I can do it, you can doit.
Kris Brown (06:40):
Steven, I just have to say, after listening to that,
I was a little bit speechless.
That is just truly amazing.
Thank you for your service.
Thank you for what you've done,for your community, for public
safety, and thank you for allthat you've done to really
amplify and lift up this issue.
JJ Janflone (07:02):
And I wonder if you could just expand on that a
little bit. From what Iunderstand the group sort of
came out after a book waswritten called "The Price They
Pay?"
Steven Hough (07:11):
That is correct.
So Dr. McGill, Jeff McGill, he'sanother founder, and Karen
Solomon, they got together andwrote a book called "The Price
They Pay." And this is where wereally took off is when the book
was presented. It discussedofficers and their and their
need for assistance, really iswhat it boiled down to, and the
(07:32):
family's assistance. The bookhad several different stories in
it. If you haven't read thebook, I would recommend highly
recommend you read it. It's anexcellent read. Dr. McGill
provided the the actual forwardsfor each chapter. In his, in his
studies for becoming a doctor,he was able to write a couple of
different articles and papersthat were used. And when we,
(07:53):
when the book finally reallycame out and really took off.
That's when Blue H.E.L.P.
started to see a surge. That'swhen we started to notice,
people were reaching out to usfor assistance to help primarily
family members, but then otherofficers came about. Because
(08:15):
there's always a, when we have asuicide, there's always that
ripple effect. And this is oneof the things that we learned
during our during our criticalincident, is that it affects so
many other people that you'renot aware of, until it's there.
And then once it's there you go,"Wow, how do I handle that." And
then the book, of course, whenthose same stories were showing
(08:36):
up repetitively with everybody,everybody kind of has along the
same, I don't want to say thesame story, but the way that
story reads is almost the same,is that individuals are trying
to reach out they're trying toreach out to agencies, they're
trying to reach out to otherofficers and that support just
wasn't there. And that's where,that's where Blue H.E.L.P.
(08:56):
really came into play.
JJ Janflone (08:58):
And on that note, I think, Kris, I would love to
hear your input too, becauseyou, and Brady more broadly, has
been doing, has been present indoing work a lot to prevent
firearm suicide, but especiallyin, I would say, the last two
years. And I'm wondering onBrady's end, why is it so
important to focus on suicideprevention of police officers
(09:19):
and first responders?
Kris Brown (09:21):
JJ, thank you for that question. I mean, I guess,
to just start off, I think thatany anytime I talk about the
issue of firearm suicide, mostAmericans are really surprised
to learn that three out of fivegun deaths in this country,
result from firearm suicide.
That's about 60% of all gundeaths in this country. And we
(09:42):
know through research into thisissue that if we address access
to the firearm, we can savelives. If we think about police
officers in particular, andtheir exposure to risk, the
trauma that they experienceday-to-day in and out of their
(10:03):
job, police officers are at ahigher risk of suicide than any
other profession. Suicide is soprevalent right now in the
profession, that the number ofpolice officers who died by
suicide is more than triple thatof officers who were fatally
injured in the line of duty.
(10:24):
That's really stark, if youthink about that. And I think
it's something that, you know,most Americans would be shocked
about. Researchers areattributing these statistics to
the unique combination of easyaccess to deadly weapons. Of
course, most officers are issuedservice weapons that they keep
at home. So that's part of theaccess issue. The stress of the
(10:47):
job, extremely intense stress,if you think about the stress
that each of us have on aday-to-day basis in our job, and
understand that few of us areactually really putting
ourselves in harm's way, butmost of them are. And then, of
course, the devastation thatpolice are exposed to on a daily
basis. And that's what thebackdrop that I understand many
(11:09):
of our listeners who are adamantand really believe that police
reform is necessary. None ofthat is taking any of that away.
But I think all of us understandthat many, many, many good
people are drawn to thisprofession and are truly putting
themselves on the line everysingle day and carrying that
(11:30):
out. And the stress and theimpact of that on their lives is
very real. Just to give a little bit more
statistics, and I don't want todo too many of these, JJ, but I
think it's important tounderstand that if you look at
2018, which is the most recentdata set that we have, the
calendar year 2018, about 167law enforcement officers died by
(11:54):
suicide. That number isprojected to increase during
2019. And as of August of thisyear, of 2020, a total of 134
officers have committed suicidewith four months of the year
still left and unaccounted for.
(12:14):
Obviously, that seems to betrending higher than even the
prior year. Many who are lookingat this, don't think that this
these numbers reflect the truenumber of suicide, as some
families choose not to reportthe cause of death as suicide, o
instead transcribe the death asaccidental. And I'm sure, JJ,
(12:38):
you're gonna help us understandwhy that is. And there's no
judgment there. It's just simplya fact. That's why from my
perspective, Brady's End FamilyFire program is so critically
important. That obviously is ourprogram that combats "famil
fire," that's the unintentionl injury or death of a loved o
(12:58):
e with a gun, with an unsecuredun in the home, that campa
gn details and seeks to prevnt family fire. And we h
ve launched now a second phaseof this campaign, focusing sol
ly on combating suicide. And I'mso happy we're having t
is conversation now becaue obviously, the suicide rates
(13:22):
f law enforcement officerss something we should all
e alarmed by, and something allf us should be working very, ve
y hard to combat. AndI personally, and I know y
u agree, believe that the Endamily Fire program can have a s
ecial place and lifting up allf our consciousness about that,
nd to make a big dent in this pr
JJ Janflone (13:43):
I'm actually excited that you brought up all
of the stats because, in alittle bit, I'm going to talk
about why Blue H.E.L.P. is oneof the few groups out there that
has the stats. So you really youintroduced something there too,
in addition to a lot of really,really important information
that I think our listenersneeded to know.
Kris Brown (13:59):
Happy to. Yeah.
JJ Janflone (14:01):
And so Steven to push over to you. I wondering if
if we could talk a little bitabout some of what I think Kris
mentioned, which is and what Ibrought up. Which is that, I, a
lot of people don't seem to knowwhat police officers actually
interact with on a daily basis,and that so many unfortunately,
we lose to suicide.
Steven Hough (14:22):
Well, and one of the one of the things that Kris
said, to follow up on what Krissaid about good people joining
the profession. What we're, alot of times what we see is we
see individuals that that joinfor the noblest of reasons that
they truly want to get out thereand help people, they truly want
(14:42):
to make a difference and theywant to be, they want to be part
of that greater good. And whenour officers go out there and
they start accumulating this,this stress that they that
they're getting put under it's,it's primarily on a, it's the
daily interactions with thosetypes of incidents that go on
all the time that a lot of timesmost folks don't know or, or
(15:06):
understand exactly what'shappening, you know. When you
got officers responding todomestic violence calls, or
child abuse calls, or fatalitiesof some kind, of one type or
another, and this is going onfor, you know, it could, it
could run every day for a week,or it could happen once a month.
But the bottom line is, is overthe, over time, in dealing with
(15:29):
those stressors, it just wearspeople down. The the idea, and
the notion behind being a lawenforcement officer is is great.
I mean, I love being I lovebeing a cop, as do most
everybody else that I know thathas been in law enforcement. But
when you start seeing thosestressors start to affect people
(15:50):
in the sense that when they gohome, and they just, they just
kind of want to crawl into alittle hole and hide away from
people. Because let's face it,we as as law enforcement, we're
not superhuman, we deal with thesame stressors that everybody
else has to deal with at home,except when we're at work, we
have to go help people deal withtheir stressors. So when we get
(16:12):
home, we don't want to have todeal with that. We don't want to
have to be burdened with littleJimmy who didn't do well on his
schoolwork or, you know, tryingto figure out what to do for
dinner, or have to deal with thein-laws coming into town, or
whatever the case it may be.
These are things that we want tocompartmentalize, and we want to
put it away. So it's it'simportant for everybody to
(16:34):
understand that, you know, theselaw enforcement officers, kind
of like what we were talkingabout earlier, they deal with
those things that you don't wantto deal with in your bubble. For
the majority of folks out there,they're happy and content, as
long as whatever it is, isn'taffecting them. And that's
that's just the way people are.
But we have to go in and have totake care of, either sometimes
(16:57):
be a social worker, sometimes bea an EMT, or another first
responder of some type. Andsometimes we've got to go in
unfortunately have to use thatdeadly force to to quell a
situation. So when when peoplehave a hard time understanding
why law enforcement officersare, why we see these numbers of
so many officers committingsuicide, it's, it's really, it's
(17:22):
really kind of hard. And that'swhat Blue H.E.L.P. has worked
on, is putting that informationout there. Just like when we
talked about the book earlier,this gives a, gives you a view
into the world of some of theselaw enforcement officers. And
you're talking about 800,000people at this point, 800,000,
strong and law enforcement. Soit's a difficult task to be able
to put that out there for forthe general public to understand
(17:44):
say, "hey, look, this is exactlywhat we're going through." And
this is exactly why the guy thatstarted five years ago, who was
so happy and ready to save theworld, is now having a difficult
time dealing with it.
Kris Brown (17:56):
I've been very interested, obviously, in my
work, and and I do a lot ofreading on the issue of trauma.
And if I think about America,having lived overseas before, I
think that gun violence in themanner, the ways in which it's
(18:16):
carried out, how common it is,is creating huge amounts of
trauma in communities acrossthis country. And certainly
those on the front lines, policeofficers experienced that in a
unique way compared to manyother Americans, but not in a
(18:36):
unique way compared to someAmericans who live in
communities who experienceeveryday gun violence. I'm very
curious about how you thinkabout this as someone who has
served in this way. I read anarticle a couple of weeks ago
that talked about Post TraumaticStress Disorder, which of course
(18:58):
is an actual diagnosis,something that folks who are
suffering from PTSD can bediagnosed with. And one of the
things that the article noted ispeople who are living in
communities that experienceevery day gun violence, actually
don't have a post traumaticstress disorder, compared to
(19:20):
those who perhaps have been incombat and left combat, and are
living in kind of differentcircumstances safe and away from
the things that caused thetrauma. For many of these
people, they're experiencingperpetual, right, not post, but
perpetual traumatic stressdisorder. And I wonder how you
(19:44):
think about that thought ornotion or idea and what you
might comment on that from yourown work, with with police
officers, who have their ownversion professionally of PTSD,
and your thoughts about that.
Steven Hough (20:01):
So, first off, I agree wholeheartedly with what
you said. There is no doubt thatin my 25 years of working law
enforcement, and even I work inthe panhandle of Florida, so the
areas or the counties that I'veworked in, there are areas that
are, they're not as violent. Butyou can, you can definitely
(20:26):
understand there's a differentway of living when it comes to
being there, right. So it's likeyou turn down a road, and we
step back in time. So, or weturn down a road, in some places
I've seen, we turn down a roadand it looks like something yo
might see from overseas inthird world country. So there i
(20:50):
no doubt that individuals tha, that live in these areas an
, and not to say everybody tht that lives there may have th
t perpetual stressor. But it isa different feel, when you liv
in an area where gunshots argoing off maybe every othe
night, or, or in some placelike maybe Chicago or some othe
(21:13):
bigger, larger cities that havreally, really big areas wher
individuals are living ipoverty, or living below tho
e means, and drugs or other cries are way of life. You know,
hat there is there's withoutoubt that these people are
(21:36):
eeling this. From the timehey're, they're young, till,
ill they're, till they're older.
I mean, I've talked with plentyof grandmas and grandpas who
back in the day, they wererunning those streets pretty
hard. And we used to be able tosit down and talk about that and
laugh about it. But the realitybehind it is, is the stressors
are there. But at the same time,you've got to take a look at it
(21:56):
from like, let's say, ourperspective, your perspective
and my perspective. We can godown there and work there for
eight hours, twelve hours outf a day, but then we come out of
it and we go live our life withur family in a nice house or in
an apartment or whatever. Andwe don't have to contend with t
(22:16):
at day after day. Do they buildup resiliency to that? Absolut
ly they do they still haveto contend with the stressors
of living in an environment lke that. Absolutely they
o. There's no question about
Kris Brown (22:30):
I appreciate that.
And I think that that'ssomething that, frankly, in our
society isn't discussed enough.
Because if you think abouttrauma and understand trauma
that has a profound impact onpeople's lives. And I think
that's part of the reason why wehave to approach the gun
(22:52):
violence epidemic, the 40,000people a year who lose their
lives, the more than 80,000others who are injured and then
have to live with those injuriesfor the rest of their lives --
as a public health epidemic. Ithink if we did that, we would
have a very different approachto helping individuals and
communities actually experiencewhat we say is the "American
(23:16):
Dream," right? That everyindividual has the opportunity
to move forward to excel intheir world. It's a lot harder
to do that, let's face that, ifyou're living in a community
riddled with gun violence, thanif you're not. And so I think
it's important to think about itthat way. And I appreciate your
(23:38):
your insight as someone who is apolice officer around this,
tremendously, in that regard.
JJ Janflone (23:45):
And and so sort of on that note, too, because this,
this got brought up about how Ithink because Kris, I think a
lot of what you're talkingabout, when you're talking, and
you too Steven, is that whenyou're talking about stigma and
what people interact with, isthere's not a lot of
transparency. I think a lot ofpeople in the US still feel
really uncomfortable talkingabout suicide.
Kris Brown (24:05):
Yeah.
JJ Janflone (24:05):
I think I think right now, having conversations
about policing are reallyuncomfortable for a lot of
people.
Kris Brown (24:10):
Yeah.
JJ Janflone (24:11):
And so I think when you combine all those things
together, it leads to a lot ofawkwardness and a lot of fear.
And then there's this addedlayer to it, which is you know,
so Blue H.E.L.P. is devoted tocollecting data on police
officer, well lawenforcement/first responder
suicides, but why has theorganization had to have taken
(24:33):
on that tracking?
Steven Hough (24:34):
So it was, obviously when we decided, "hey,
look, we need to look at theseofficers who have who have
committed suicide," we need tounderstand the totality of what
we're dealing with here. This isanother one of those epiphanies
that we had as we started movingfrom probably around 2013 or 14,
into 15. When we actually said"hey, look, we're collecting
(24:57):
this data." We actually went inand we were like, "Hey, we can't
fix what what we don't know." Sothat's when the that's when we
started saying, look, there'swebsites out there, ODMP
(Officer Down Memorial Page) isout there tracking officers who
were killed in the line of duty.
We've got the FBI tracking, notonly that, but officers
feloniously assaulted everyyear. But then we noticed nobody
(25:18):
was tracking the number ofofficers that are, are
committing suicide. So at thatpoint, that's when we made our
determination, hey, we've got totake a look at these numbers to
see what exactly is going on. Tobetter understand, we can't help
if we don't know, the fullextent of the the, the, the
(25:39):
entire, the totality ofeverything that we're dealing
with.
So in 2015, that's when westarted collecting our data. Our
numbers are on our website,BlueHELP.org, we've got our
numbers laid out consistently.
And they been fairly consistentfrom, there's a little bit of
fluctuation in the numbersbetween 2015 and last year. Last
(26:01):
year, we saw that big spike.
We're at, I think now we're at235 for last year, those numbers
continuously grow as more peoplereport. So the numbers are,
once, we're getting to a pointnow where our actual data is
going to start to be able totell us, give us an idea, a map,
(26:24):
so-to-speak, of of what we'redealing with, and why some of
these things are happening. It'sover 20/25 collection points at
this point. So we're askingindividuals to report all types
of information so we can see,get a better understanding of
"why?" We know a majority of ithas to deal with that stigma
(26:45):
that machismo, if you will. Thatofficers are not supposed to,
we're there to take care ofpeople, nobody needs to take
care of us. And that's where ourofficers are getting into
trouble is they're just, I don'twant to say they're afraid. But
hey, look, we're the cops, we'resupposed to be taking care of
folks, nobody should need totake care of us. And the numbers
are pointing us in directions,just so we we have a better
(27:10):
grasp of, of was there otheroutside influences on on the
mental health of that officer atthat time?
JJ Janflone (27:19):
You know, it's strange, because you saying, you
know "what we don't know, wecan't fix" is something that
I've literally heard Kris say?
Steven Hough (27:27):
Yes.
JJ Janflone (27:27):
Because there's just so little data about gun
violence there, period.
Steven Hough (27:32):
Exactly. And I mean, even even to take it that
step further, I think Kris waswanting to talk about, or you
asked, about why officers, themajority of officers that commit
suicide is by a firearm. Andthis is one of those things that
that data helps support, ithelps to sit there and say, hey,
look, yes. Are they committingsuicide by other means?
(27:54):
Absolutely. The majority is, isby firearm. Now, we don't, we
don't collect any information asfar as was it service weapon or
anything like that. At thispoint, that's, that's really
irrelevant. If if it's, if theycomplete suicide by firearm,
that's what they did. And thesesorts of things between that and
(28:17):
other, other data points that wecan grab, help kind of guide us,
if we're going to put ontraining, or if we're going to
go talk to an agency, or anofficer that may need help. That
kind of stuff really helps usout in where Blue H.E.L.P. is
going to go.
Kris Brown (28:34):
I have to say as an American as an as someone who
leads a gun violence preventionorganization, I would say that
most Americans when asked, likeso many sub issues related to
the cause of gun violenceprevention, would really be
alarmed at what Steven istelling us here, which is that
(28:55):
basically no federal agencykeeps an official count of how
many law enforcement officerscommit suicide each year. That
strikes me as really not good.
When we know that most officersdie of suicide, at a much higher
rate than die of shootings andtraffic accidents combined. It
(29:17):
just leaves me incredulous. Idon't understand. It's a problem
that cries out for betteranswers, and remedies. And I
feel like I don't understand whywe're not doing better by those
who are serving us. And Steven,you must feel this way. And I
(29:39):
just have to say, you know, onthis podcast, thank you. Thank
you so much for what you aredoing to draw attention to this,
but I wish that you had moresupport in our government, to
help those who are puttingthemselves on the line to really
combat this.
Steven Hough (30:00):
Times are changing, right. So we know, as
a as an organization, we knowthat there are now, bills being
introduced, there's legislationbeing introduced, that is
requiring agencies or federalagencies to start tracking this
information. So is it scary toknow it has never been tracked?
Absolutely. Are we thankful thatbecause, of course, what we
(30:25):
believe, is that our work haskind of propelled this to a
forefront, where people arefinally starting to take notice
and starting to say, "hey, look,this is this is a real problem."
And we, we need to figure out,just like Blue H.E.L.P. did, it
JJ Janflone (30:40):
And I wonder in terms of, sort of, steps in the
started with an Excelspreadsheet tracking these
officers, you know. It's timefor other entities, other
governmental agencies, or evenlocal and state agencies to
start tracking within their ownpurview. And and seeing exactly
what we're dealing with here. Weknow that those numbers that are
(31:03):
being reported are low. We knowthat those, just as you said
earlier, that officers are notbeing reported because of family
members, either A (31:13):
they're just not ready to report, and that's
and that's totally respectable.
The loss of a loved one is istremendous. And I couldn't
imagine going through goingthrough some of these things
that our families have gonethrough. But the other thing is,
is the agencies, some of theagencies try and keep this
quiet. You know, there's other,there's other things behind it,
(31:35):
that it just doesn't come to theforefront. So having, having th
bills and the legislation outhere now, that's saying, "he
, look, you guys have got to stat tracking it." It's definitel
a step in the right directiright direction, I'm wondering
if you could talk a little bitabout some of the things that
Blue H.E.L.P. has, has done tohelp make these conversations a
(31:59):
little bit easier, to makeofficers view, either asking for
help, or for their familymembers or for their partners.
Because, as you and I weretalking about before we started
rolling, you know, for for a lotof people in law enforcement,
their "work family," you know,becomes their family. Kris has
an experience that happens withnonprofits too, at least gun
violence prevention nonprofits,where you, you're at the office
(32:21):
a lot. But you end up you form afamily, and so people reaching
out to say that, you know, "I'mworried about my partner." I'm
wondering if you could talk alittle bit about how to reduce
that stigma, so that more peopleget to come home and stay safe.
Steven Hough (32:37):
One of the biggest ways obviously, that we that
we've come across is, you wouldbe actually kind of surprised
that when we do conferences, orwe do, we'll go talk with
agencies, once it's out there,that other individuals are
having the the same difficultiesat work, due to, you know, just
(33:01):
the stressors of everything, itreally kind of takes on, it
manifests itself and otherofficers come forward. Just to
use that example we were talkingabout before we started, before
we started really talking, when,when we were involved in that,
that shooting, one of the thingsthat a group of us would do is
we just get together just to seehow each other were doing. And
(33:22):
what we started talking aboutwere the same things. How one of
us would get angry, for noreason, or one of us would be in
the middle of a store andtotally forget what they were
doing or, you know. So in andamongst my little group, there
were discussions going on that,for lack of a better term, were
like debriefings. So we wereliterally talking about all
(33:46):
these things that bothered us.
And when you put other officersin front of a group of officers,
you can surely expect at least ahandful of them to come forward
and say, "hey, look, I've beendoing the same thing", or "I've
been feeling the same way." Andthen that's where we can step in
and say, hey, we've got apartnership over here we can let
(34:06):
me see if we can help you out.
Or, hey, we've got Camp Aprilcoming up where the kids can
attend and the family memberscan get together and mourn
together. It's this, this wholething about coming together and
doing your debriefings, andhaving those family members
together. Blue family or yourhome family, is nothing new. You
(34:31):
know, many times we discuss andI've discussed this with Jeff
many-a-time, about the theaterof war. There's a play that was
put on about Ajax, is a Greekgeneral, that was he was having
problems, mental healthproblems, and this was way back
(34:52):
in, this was this is we'retalking history, long history
ago, that we talked about thesethings were If people would just
come forward individuals,officers, guys out in the field,
as far as being overseas inbattle, if they come forward and
talk, it will make you feelbetter. This is nothing new.
(35:14):
It's, but same thing is, thestigma is not new. The stigma
has always been there. And whatwe have found is, as we put more
information up on our socialmedia websites, Instagram, we
talk to other officers and go,"hey, look, yeah, we've had some
of those problems as well," westart to see that kind of come
to the forefront. And that'swhere we're at now we're getting
(35:36):
such a, I don't want to say sucha following, but the
understanding of, hey, look,it's okay to start talking about
this, is one that is moved tothe forefront. Now we've got a
new, as you were saying you'rean older millennial, right?
We've got
JJ Janflone (35:54):
I believe elder millenial was my term.
Steven Hough (35:55):
Elder, ok elder.
So we've got, you know, we'vegot a new group of law
enforcement coming in. It's notlike, not like me, I stayed in
one place for for 25, you know,20 years, and then moved to
another agency. Your dad stayedin one place for a long time,
(36:16):
and, and didn't move. And theseindividuals are all about moving
around and staying in the sameprofession, but doing different
things. They're also, what we'venoticed, is they're more apt to
talk about things that botherthem, then my age group, or
perhaps the age group below me.
So we're starting to see adifference in the the type of
(36:39):
officer that's coming in. Andthat's also helping to bring
that stigma to a forefrontbecause they've already been
used to talking about issuesthat they may have dealt with,
maybe not even as a lawenforcement officer, just maybe
dealing with home life, orschool life or whatever was
going on at the time, in theirin their lives. So we're
definitely starting to see thatshift. But it's, we're far from
(37:02):
being done, far from it.
JJ Janflone (37:03):
I wonder, if you do you think that there will ever
be a shift to in, sort of,officers and you know, taking
their, their their guns homewith them. So because that's, I
think, you know, the elephant inthe room that we think we're
talking about, because so manyofficers, when they do die from
suicide, they die from firearmsuicide, and they do so with
(37:23):
their servicee weapon. And I'mwondering, do you think that
there ever be a shift in sort ofhow people talk about storing
their service weapons whenthey're when they're at home? Or
if they own, you know, I'll behonest, every cop I've ever met,
has owned multiple guns, youknow, storing storing their
other weapons and in a differentway. Do you think that people
are open to having thatparticular conversation? Or do
(37:45):
you think it's, it's sort ofmore of a different conversation
that needs to be more focused onmental health and safe storage,
as opposed to maybe safe storagefirst?
Steven Hough (37:52):
I would say it's a it's a good healthy combination
of both. So I will tell you, asyour as you are familiar, and
I'm sure Ms. Kris is familiar,the majority of your law
enforcement officers would wouldpush towards the side of, of a
mental health concern ratherthan a firearms concern, and
that's just the way our beliefsare. Now there are going to be
(38:14):
officers out there that sidewith saying, "hey, look, we need
to do better about putting ourarms away." Or if we're having
an episode of some type of panicattack, or we're starting to
feel like we're, we're having aproblem with that mental health,
that, hey, those guns are putaway immediately. Now, Also,
(38:35):
keep in mind, though, we've gotover 18,000 law enforcement
agencies in the United States,and quite a few of them require
their officers to leave thoseweapons. Either they come out of
uniform, they may leave theirweapons at the station, or they
may lock them away in a certainspace. Some, you know, some
agencies just won't even lettheir people wear their uniforms
(38:57):
home. So that is that, andthat's been going on for quite a
while. So there is thatconversation on that side of the
house that's saying, hey, look,we've got to take better care of
our officers, as far as toseparate that a work from home
kind of thing. The the flip sideof that with with the firearms
(39:20):
issue is it's, it's a, a bighill to climb. I'll say that.
Because you've got myself and,as you pointed out, other
officers that own multipleweapons at the home, and even
some of, like I said, some ofour officers though they chose
(39:40):
not, they chose a different wayto to commit that suicide. So
you're going to have an argumenton one side of the house that
says, "hey, this is readilyavailable. If this gets taken
away, they'll find another wayto do it." And then we're going
to have folks on the other sideof the house that say "hey,
look, if we take better care ofour officers, this becomes a non
(40:04):
issue." If we provide ourofficers with the ability to, to
discuss those things that arereally bothering them and take
care of their mental health,then the other issue becomes a
moot point. So that's that'skind of a, you know, you're
almost in a catch 22,so-to-speak situation. Half of
(40:25):
your officers, or some of yourofficers, are going to side one
way, and some of your officersare going to side another way.
Kris Brown (40:30):
The issue that we know from the work that we've
done, which has taken about 15months to craft, the End Family
Fire campaign focused on suicideprevention, in particular. And
we talk to law enforcementofficers and veterans as part of
this process is, ultimately,everyone agrees that the
(40:54):
prevention of suicide is a toppriority issue. The issue we
have in our country is amisunderstanding, it's, it's
sad, because it's just so basic,that the means matter. If you
have easy access to guns in thehome, and what does that mean?
(41:15):
That means a loaded, unsecuredweapon in your kitchen drawer,
in your bedside table, in yourfront drawer, anywhere in the
home, that is a means to suicidethat is unobstructed. And what
most people don't know, and wewe know, this writ large for
(41:38):
many communities, and I don'tthink law enforcement are immune
to this is that means and accessmatter. So if you can find ways
or barriers to get access tothat loaded unsecured weapon,
you have the opportunity to savea life. And when I talk about
(42:02):
this, I think about the manypeople that I have talked to
who've lost loved ones to gunsuicide, and that is a pain you
can never get back. And for mostof these people, this is not
something that they plotted andplanned over a long period of
time, it was a situationalcrisis, and access to something
(42:28):
that is decidedly lethal.
And I don't want to put morestatistics in front of people.
But I think this is important tonote. Because really, there are
a few things in life where youcan find a more stark statistic.
If you have a gun that isloaded, and unlocked and
unsecured, and you have accessto it, and you complete a
(42:51):
suicide, 90% of the time orattempt suicide 90% of the time,
you will complete that suicide,that's nine out of 10. Think
about that. That's compared toevery other means of suicide,
where on average 3%. And justfor the people who want, you
(43:15):
know, the full facts, thatdoesn't mean nine out of 10,
that means point 03 out of 10.
That means out of 100 we'retalking about three people. And
out of 100 it means 90% of thepeople with a gun, 90. What
we're saying here is the gunmatters. And what I really want
(43:38):
to drive home too is, access tothe gun matters, and that means
everyone in the home. So if youhave someone who's at risk,
please make sure that the gun isunloaded, that it's secured,
meaning safe, away fromeveryone. And that ammo is also
(43:58):
away. That is criticallyimportant. We don't want people
yo have easy access to guns ifthey're high risk. And what
we've heard from Steven is theremay be particular instances in
which that happens, and so weall have to work together. This
is just like designated driver,secondhand smoke, other kinds of
(44:23):
campaigns. Family fire is reallyfocused on making sure that all
of us understand the risks ofloaded, unlocked unsecured guns
in the home, and the very basicthings we can do. It's not anti
gun at all. Just securing thatgun in the home, all guns in the
(44:44):
home, can save you can save thepeople who are on the front
lines of protecting yourcommunity, law enforcement
officers everyone. I can'tunderstate it
Steven Hough (44:57):
Along the lines of the weapons, you know, I'm a uh,
I wouldn't say that I'm a biggun guy, but I have multiple
weapons, and I've always trainedwith them, and I've always made
sure to understand, you know, afirearm is a tool, and you got
to know how to use the toolproperly. Just like you said,
(45:18):
with the driving, I was going touse the same thing. Just like
with a vehicle, you've got toknow how to drive your vehicle
properly, or you're going to,you know, that's, you can wind
up in the same situations. Now,when it comes to, as you said,
about folks who are at risk,absolutely. I couldn't agree
with that more. If you know,somebody that is having a
difficult time, and there'smultiple weapons around the
(45:39):
house, you would be remiss ifyou did not take those actions
to, to mitigate thatpossibility. But, and especially
with with law enforcementofficers, and this is again,
this is goes right back to theto that stigma that we've been
talking about all day is, youknow, how bad it is, we don't
(46:01):
know, or the family doesn'tknow, because the officer wants
to maintain that control. Theywant, they have that, they do it
12 hours out of a day, they feellike they should be able to do
it at home. And without questionthat if if we know there are
things going on, securing thoseweapons securing, and I say
(46:22):
weapons, I mean, obviously ourcrux here is guns, but any of
the weapons that can be used forto cause harm to yourself, you
need to be aware of, you need tobe cognizant of it so that you
can take the necessary steps toprotect your loved ones. These
are things that can get workedthrough with the proper, with
proper counseling or talkingwith other individuals. I can't
(46:46):
tell you how many guys have cometo us and just once they've
gotten it off their chest, theyfeel better, and then they're
in, they get in the right frameof mind, and then we move
forward with helping them betterunderstand that resiliency and
build that resiliency up, tomove forward in their lives. So
securing that and stopping thatone harsh decision. Absolutely.
(47:08):
I don't know that anybody woulddisagree with that.
JJ Janflone (47:11):
And on that note, so Steven, you've been amazing.
And I hope you come back. I'mgoing to ask you on air so that
you feel you feel guilty andlike you have to.
Okay,It's a psychological ploy. She's
good at it.
I told you 13 year old girlskills, I'm going to be
emotionally manipulate
Steven Hough (47:29):
Oh, dang. Okay
JJ Janflone (47:32):
But so I mean, I think we have to have you back.
Because this is I think the verybeginning, you know, have a much
longer conversation, that, thatall groups who are interacting
in this space need to be havingback and forth with each other.
You know, I think because themore we talk, the more people
can hear, have an opportunity tohear, and the more people hear,
the more they have anopportunity to listen. But as
(47:52):
our time is drawing to a close,I'm wondering if there's
anything that you would want toshare with listeners here, who
if they are worried aboutthemselves or others, you know,
where can they find BlueH.E.L.P.? And where can they
find assistance?
Steven Hough (48:05):
Gotcha. Well, I can tell you that you could find
blue help just about anywhere atthis point. So you could go to
BlueHELP.org. You'll see a listof our of our sponsors, as well
as our partnerships that we havewith individuals. You can find
us anywhere on social media. Asa matter of fact, I would
encourage you, if you would. Ifyou put notes in your podcast,
(48:30):
put my email out there. Ifsomebody wants to contact me, or
they want to contact BlueH.E.L.P., they can do that at
contact BlueHELP.org. Thebiggest thing that I can tell
you is in, and I said this theother day, was the majority of
what we're seeing our lawenforcement officers, our guys
and gals going through right nowthe stressors that they are
(48:51):
dealing with, are, are overcomewith, you can definitely
overcome it. There's a lot ofpush in the media right now to
shed bad light on lawenforcement and that weighs
heavily on our folks out thereon the streets to actually doing
the job, doing doing the workthat nobody else wants to do.
Stay positive, and if you needthat help, reach out to us. And
(49:15):
we can definitely, if we can'thelp you, we're going to put
you, we're going to put you withsomebody that can. And to the
families that have lost lovedones to suicide, first responder
suicide, please contact us,we're more than happy. We send
out care packages all the time,to the families of lost loved
(49:36):
ones, just to let them know,hey, somebody is thinking about
you and we're here to help. So Iwould encourage anybody that is
listening to the podcast, hey,if if you know of a first
responder that is the need ofassistance, give us a call.
Kris Brown (49:50):
I also want to say to all of you listening today
that for those of you who wantto get involved, who care about
Brady, and what Steven is doing,please go to our website,
Bradyunited.org. And also if youwant more information, you can
find their information about theEnd Family Fire campaign that we
(50:12):
talked about throughout thiswebcast. It's a critical life
saving campaign really focused,not only on ensuring that
children aren't injuredunintentionally with guns in
their home, but also reducingthe risk of suicide. So if you
want to get more information,please go to Bradyunited.org or
(50:35):
EndFamilyFire.org.
JJ Janflone (50:39):
Are you interested in sharing with the podcast?
Listeners can get in touch withus here at "Red, Blue and Brady"
via phone or text message.
Simply call or text us at480-744-3452 with your thoughts,
questions, concerns, ideas,whatever!
And you know what else you canshare? Chocolate. Come join me
in eating your 2020 feelings byshopping Hu's KitchenChocolate
which is free of dairy glutenrefined sugar, palm oil and cane
(51:02):
sugar. My personal favorite arethe dark gems. It's a bag
bursting with 70% dark chocolate-- paleo style. Click on the
link in the description of ourepisode to help support the show
and to buy you or your loved onesome tasty treats.
Thanks for listening. As always,Brady's life saving work and
Congress, the courts andcommunities across the country
(51:22):
is made possible thanks to you.
For more information on Brady orhow to get involved in the fight
against gun violence, pleaselike and subscribe to the
podcast. Get in touch with us atBradyUnited.org or on social
media @Bradybuzz. Be brave andremember -- take action not
sides.
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