Suicide among the police | “The difficulty with having a uniform is taking it off when you’re not filing. »

How many police officers commit suicide in Quebec each year? In 2019, it was known that 21 police officers had committed suicide in the previous 10 years, but for all the officers in the province, there is no real portrait of the situation. Martine Laurier, a retired police officer who experienced a suicidal crisis, offers a rare testimony with a raised visor.

Louise Leduc
The Press

In From the uniform to the desire to end it – Tools to detect deep distress, written in collaboration with Catherine Lafrance, Martine Laurier plays the card of total transparency, without trying to give herself the best role. By telling what makes police officers particularly vulnerable, by explaining how difficult it is to return to work after a mental health problem.

“The difficulty of having a uniform is to take it off when you’re not spinning,” she summarizes in an interview with The Press.

Referring to various publicized tragedies, she points out that the police are not the only ones at risk.

Just like the police officer who discovered the murdered children of Guy Turcotte, an ambulance dispatched to the Quebec mosque during the attack and a volunteer firefighter during the Lac-Mégantic rail tragedy committed suicide, like so many others here and somewhere else.

For her, everything changed in 1999. During training with police colleagues, she watched a video of a violent demonstration in which racialized citizens participated. “Couldn’t they go back where they came from, instead of doing this here?” “, she throws around.

A racist remark, unjustifiable, she said. The kind of remark, she adds, that was commonly made between police officers at the time.

So she falls from the clouds when she is summoned to high places. A colleague filed a complaint. She immediately apologizes.

“With my heart in my throat, I grab my service weapon and leave, even if the day is far from over,” she wrote.

In the midst of torment, she will absolutely not hear her superior tell her that it will stop there, that the complaint will remain unanswered.

During the following night, “I want to die, but I realize that getting there won’t be easy. I alternate between the will to get out of it and the conviction that my children will no longer have a mother at daybreak”.

Also, “I still have enough lucidity to understand that I could ‘miss my shot'”.

After the children’s departure for school, she calls her sergeant to advise him that she will not be returning to work. As she returns from a week’s vacation, a colleague is surprised. She and a colleague go to Martine Laurier’s, just in time. They quickly take the service weapon that is on the living room table and they call for help.

Relatives who are not to blame

The insight of her colleague – exceptionally alert because she herself had relatives who had attempted suicide – saved her life, says Ms.^me Laurel.

She immediately adds that those who didn’t see it coming shouldn’t feel guilty. “As it is often said, suicide is a personal and permanent gesture to a temporary situation. If only, in the midst of a crisis, we were able to stop thinking about what awaits us in a week, in a month or in a year, and only try to get through the night! The next day, things may already appear less gloomy to us. »

Barring exceptions, police officers must leave their weapons at the police station after the day’s work. But in fact, “no one is monitoring that”, notes M^me Laurel.

Clearly, she adds, almost all police officers who attempt their own life use their service weapon.

To understand everything, to feed, ultimately, the training that she ended up giving on suicide prevention and to write the book that she is publishing these days, Ms.^me Laurier sought the testimony of several relatives.

In all honesty, his colleague who saved his life will admit frankly how heavy it could be to rub shoulders with her in those years as she “vampirized” those around her by talking over and over about her personal problems.

For her part, her superior will tell her that she regretted not having known how much she was already on the floor when she had been summoned for her racist remark.

Difficult returns to work

Unlike a police officer who returns to his post after a physical health problem – particularly when he has been injured in service – one whose work has notably weakened his mental balance is not welcomed with open arms or as a hero. He takes his hole.

As a police officer, “it is unthinkable to admit to our peers that we had a moment of weakness, can we read. You just can’t afford it, because those colleagues will then think that you’re no longer reliable, that you’re no longer a reliable partner. A peace officer is not supposed to be someone who needs help. »

“ I put my armor back on and continued. »

In 2005, again struggling with the aftermath of her difficult divorce, Martine Laurier, who is not an alcoholic, drowns her sorrows one evening in alcohol, which is contraindicated with her medication.

The next day, on the phone with her new spouse, she burst into tears. He informs his superior. An ambulance is called for her to the scene. “I wasn’t suicidal,” she said, just distraught. »

After the crisis of 1999, the entourage is nervous, M^me Laurier understands this perfectly. But “I’m ashamed to be taken away, lying on a stretcher, under the gaze of colleagues”.

On the way back, we tell her that we no longer want her in the team. In the following two years, she will be transferred 13 times, in as many neighborhood stations.

From reassignment to reassignment, she notes in her book, “the facts are distorted, exaggerated. They give rise to gossip, gossip, which can destroy careers. I want to hide. »

Having ultimately found his calling – suicide prevention within the Montreal Police Department –, Ms.^me Laurier devoted himself to it until his retirement in 2017.

Today, she continues to remind police officers that they too must protect themselves, to inform people of the signs that may be warning signs of suicide, and to remind employees and supervisors in various workplaces that they must show “compassion and humanity”.

To all of them, she especially wishes to say that it is possible – with medication, if necessary – to find the light.