The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office is reeling after four employees committed suicide within a 24-hour period last week. One of the deceased was a former employee, and three others were current employees. The crummy way that liberal cities are treating law enforcement ever since George Floyd died of a fentanyl overdose while in police custody is, no doubt, contributing to spikes in early retirements and suicides.
The identities of the four employees have been withheld pending next-of-kin notifications. Detectives were called to the scene of the first death at 10:30 a.m. on Monday in Valencia, CA. A second death was reported in Lancaster just before 1:00 p.m., and the third took place in Stevenson Ranch at 5:40 p.m. The following morning, officers responded to the fourth death at 7:30 a.m.
The deaths have all been listed as suicides, and the Sheriff’s Office says foul play is not suspected. The Biden regime, along with LA County’s Soros-backed District Attorney George Gascon, has had the Sheriff’s Office under a microscope for things like roughing up rapists and gang members (because you want to be gentle with those sorts, right?). As it’s going through bogus investigations from the America Last crowd, the department has also been traumatized by the continuing decline of California’s biggest cities.
Criminals are released without bail and often without being charged with anything, which causes the arresting officers and deputies to question the entire point of their careers. Department cuts amid the “defund the police” movement have left departments understaffed and definitely feeling unappreciated by the very communities they’re supposed to be protecting. One LA County Sheriff’s deputy was executed while sitting in his vehicle in September. All that trauma adds up when piled on top of an already stressful day-to-day job.
One of the employees who committed suicide last week was a 25-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Office who had served as a chief department spokesperson. Another was a retired sergeant. The third worked as a custody assistant in an LA County jail. The sheriff’s office had four other employees commit suicide earlier this year. With 8 suicides, that accounts for 10% of all police suicides in the US in 2023.
A study by the Ruderman Family Foundation last year found that police and firefighters are far more likely to die by suicide than to die in the line of duty. The study also explored reasons why law enforcement officers are under so much stress. Many cited the trauma of the job, coupled with the ongoing lack of support from their local communities. The LA County Sheriff’s Department is a majority-Hispanic department, and yet local media constantly accuse officers of “white supremacy” if they have to use force on the job.
Officers also complain of a lack of financial compensation for the work they do and say that their superiors are quick to throw them under the bus at the first hint of something the media declares to be a scandal. We see this time and time again in the age of George Floyd. Every prosecutor who worked to crucify Derek Chauvin and the three officers who assisted him in restraining George Floyd back in May of 2020 knew that he had died of fentanyl-induced heart failure. There were absolutely no signs of asphyxiation or strangulation.
The cops didn’t kill George Floyd—period. But Democrat-run cities across America have been treating all police officers like second-class citizens who are out to murder minorities. The consequences of this shift in political sentiment are right in front of us.
