The dying of an off-duty Chicago police detective discovered Friday in his Mount Greenwood dwelling has been dominated a suicide.
About midday Friday, the 59-year-old man was discovered inside a house within the 3900 block of West 104th Avenue, in accordance with Chicago police. He was unresponsive, with a gunshot wound to the head, police mentioned, and was pronounced lifeless on the scene.
Post-mortem outcomes launched over the weekend dominated his dying a suicide, in accordance with the Cook dinner County medical expert’s workplace.
“I ask that you just maintain his household, family members and all those that labored alongside him in your ideas as they course of his unfathomable loss,” Police Supt. Larry Snelling wrote in a message to division members.
The detective was assigned to the Space 2 Division, which covers a lot of the South Facet, in accordance with Snelling’s be aware.
No less than three members of the Chicago Police Division died by suicide final yr.
They embody a 29-year-old officer was found inside a West Loop residence in Might with a gunshot wound to the pinnacle, in accordance with police.
Additionally, a month earlier, Celal Cenker Surgit, 54, who spent practically 20 years with the division, was discovered lifeless from a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside his West Ridge dwelling, in accordance with police and the medical expert’s workplace.
Particulars weren’t obtainable on final yr’s third suicide within the ranks.
The division has struggled lately to offer adequate mental health resources for officers, in accordance with a metropolis inspector normal report launched on the finish of 2022.
Between 2016 and 2023, 31 division workers died by suicide. In 2022 alone, seven Chicago cops took their very own lives — three of them inside a single month that summer season and three extra inside per week that December.
The division at present has 21 counselors offering psychological well being companies to its greater than 11,600 members, nearing nearer to its objective of assigning one counselor to every of its 22 police districts.
Counseling might be discovered via the division’s Employee Assistance Program which supplies free, confidential companies to all lively and retired members of the Chicago Police Division, in addition to their households.
