Author: Mike Wynn, Director of the First Responder Resilience Project
As the clock wound down to the final minutes of the year, the Officer Down Memorial Page (ODMP) listed the number of law enforcement line-of-duty deaths in 2025 at 971 2 ODMP defines a line of duty death as “Any law enforcement officer who has died as a direct and proximate result of a personal injury sustained in the line of duty. This includes law enforcement officers who, while in an off-duty capacity, act in direct response to an emergency situation involving the general public or a violation of the law”. This is the lowest annual number since 18973 and represents decades of concerted efforts to increase officer safety and wellness practices. The sad irony is that at the same time ODMP was reporting this historically low number, First Help published the reported law enforcement and corrections suicide deaths for 2025. At the time of this writing, that unfortunate number was 104 (the total number for all first responders for 2025 is 134)4. It’s believed that the true figure may likely be even higher, as many suicides go unreported due to societal and departmental stigma.5
The historically low line-of-duty death number was not merely the result of good fortune. In 2010, a group of law enforcement professionals and instructors attended the annual International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association (ILEETA) Conference. During dinner one evening, Major Travis Yates of the Tulsa Police Department expressed a sentiment that made the others pause. He stated, “If we would just slow down, wear our seatbelts, and clear intersections, we could get our line of duty deaths to below 100 a year.”6 What began at that dinner table that evening eventually evolved into what is now known as the Below 100 Program. The Below 100 Program involves providing officers with education aimed at five basic tenets:
- Wear Your Belt.
- Wear Your Vest.
- Watch Your Speed.
- WIN—What’s Important Now?
- Remember—Complacency Kills!7
Since the purpose of this article is not to parse the details of officer safety initiatives, I’m not going to break down each of those five tenets. Suffice it to say, those five simple principles: using a seat belt, wearing a ballistic vest, driving safer, prioritizing the most important task, and never getting complacent have contributed significantly to reducing officer injuries and deaths over the past fifteen years. As I reflected on the difference between those two reported numbers, 97 line-of-duty deaths compared with 104 deaths by suicide, I found myself wondering, “What would a similar campaign aimed at reducing first responder suicide look like? What would the tenets be?”
In reflecting on the research and my own experiences, I’d like to offer the following: 5 Tenets to Reduce First Responder Suicide:
1. Pay Attention
When I have the opportunity to work with newly promoted police supervisors, I always emphasize the importance of monitoring their team members’ behavior and staying alert to any changes. I share with them that, as a strong introvert myself, I never wanted to pry too deeply into my officers’ personal business, but I always made a point of educating myself on their baseline workplace behaviors. Once I became familiar with their day-to-day activities, it became easier to detect anomalies in their attendance. Is an officer who is normally very prompt suddenly running into roll call right at the start of the shift? Is their normally squared away uniform suddenly unkempt? Are their reports typically thorough and well-written, suddenly missing key elements and riddled with errors? Are they engaging in risky behaviors during calls, or not using all of their protective equipment? If you notice a change in a partner’s behavior, it may be time to intervene8.
2.Ask the Tough Questions
No one wants to confront a co-worker and pry into what may be very personal and private business. However, first responder agencies are built on a culture of teamwork.9 In this type of environment, what affects one team member can affect the entire team. Ignoring a teammate in trouble is a disservice to the individual and the team. Discreetly approaching a colleague, on or off-duty, to ask how they’re doing and offering a hand may be the first step in an intervention that could save their life. This can occur as a formal ask or informally during a social interaction. All too often, the first time first responders notice changes in a teammate’s behavior is during a discussion after a funeral.10 This is a preventable tragedy. Asking a colleague if they’re okay or need help demonstrates compassion, empathy, and care. Asking a teammate if they are considering harming themselves or considering suicide does not increase the risk of suicide.11 It may, in fact, save their life.
3. Debrief in Real Time
The time to find out if a teammate has been negatively impacted by a call for service or a critical incident is not during the formal, scheduled Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD), days, weeks, or even months later. The time to determine whether someone has been affected by a call is in the immediate aftermath. Two first responders may handle the same call and be impacted in completely different ways.12 This may depend on previous experiences, on- or off-duty, associations, links to other aspects of their life, unique perspectives, and other factors. Identifying in real time when a teammate is struggling with an incident and connecting them quickly with the appropriate resources can significantly reduce the impact of trauma and build resilience.
4.Build a Robust Toolkit
For your own well-being, and that of your teammates, know what tools and resources are available to you. If they’re not sufficient, work on improving and increasing them. In 2026, the number and variety of mental health and resiliency resources available to first responders is immense and constantly increasing.13 Mental health resources commonly available to first-responder agencies include Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs), peer-support teams, agency clinicians, chaplains, labor-union clinicians, internal or third-party wellness apps, private nonprofit organizations and retreats, and both inpatient and outpatient treatment facilities.14 15 This list is by no means exclusive.
5. Normalize Conversations About Mental Health Challenges
One of the biggest risk factors facing first responders’ mental health challenges is the stigma associated with admitting we’re not ok, seeking help, and accepting it. Due to strong occupational stereotypes and traditional organizational cultures, conversations around the negative effects of trauma and the mental health challenges trauma can cause are not yet widely accepted in the first responder community.16 17 While these attitudes are changing, the change is far from universal. Encouraging and facilitating this change is a core mission of The Quell Foundation and The First Responder Resilience Project.
FRRP Mission
Normalizing a new culture for mental wellness in the first responder community by building resilient mindsets at work, home,and into retirement through trusted and proven educational resources.
One first responder’s life lost to suicide is one too many. 134, across all sectors, is a horrific tragedy. If we commit to a handful of shared principles, we can take concrete steps to reduce that number. While these are my thoughts and suggestions, I’m certain there are many other things we can do that will also have a positive impact. These are the five that I’m going to focus on in the near term:
- Pay Attention
- Ask the Tough Questions
- Debrief in Real Time
- Build a Robust Toolkit
- Normalize Conversations About Mental Health Challenges
The First Responder Resilience Project aims to reduce the number of first responder suicides by reducing the stigma associated with conversations about mental health challenges. We invite you to join us in this important work. For more information about arranging a screening of First Responders Sound the Alarm, or accessing our video-based training modules, contact me at mwynn@thequellfoundation.org.
Citations
1“Officer Down Memorial Page,” Officer Down Memorial Page, https://www.odmp.org/search/year/2025.
2Dale Stockton, “What the Lowest Line-of-Duty Death Total on Record Really Means for Policing,” Occupational, Police1.Com, January 3, 2026, https://www.police1.com/officer-safety/what-the-lowest-line-of-duty-death-total-on-record-really-means-for-policing?utm_medium=referral&utm_social_post_id=641679328&utm_social_handle_id=11952974739&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwY2xjawPIuT5leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFBSDZZczBuWWJqeFRhWFpvc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHiDEPET-afIy0K3Ms-QIBcLhs_SV1yHx9XFqCd7xT_mbOrIva-TyXYkbh2hS_aem_QQfVbl39o3mJYCc39LEHMg.
3“Below 100,” January 13, 2026, below100.org; Gordon Graham, “Below 100 Didn’t Happen by Accident,” Police1.Com, January 3, 2026, https://www.police1.com/officer-safety/below-100-didnt-happen-by-accident.
4“First HELP,” Suicide Statistics-The Numbers, January 13, 2026, https://1sthelp.org/the-numbers/.
5 Miriam Heyman et al., The Ruderman White Paper on Mental Health and Suicide of First Responders (2018).
6“Below 100.”
7“Below 100”; Graham, “Below 100 Didn’t Happen by Accident.”
8Heyman et al., The Ruderman White Paper on Mental Health and Suicide of First Responders.
9Jason R Ingram et al., “Police Culture and Officer Behavior: Application of a Multilevel Framework,” Criminology 56, no. 4 (2018): 780–811.
10Craig J. Bryan et al., “Improving the Detection and Prediction of Suicidal Behavior among Military Personnel by Measuring Suicidal Beliefs: An Evaluation of the Suicide Cognitions Scale,” Journal of Affective Disorders 159 (April 2014): 15–22, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2014.02.021.
11Jonathan Pushnik et al., Lift the Mask: First Responders Sound The Alarm, 2022.
12SAMHSA, “First Responders: Behavioral Health Concerns, Emergency Response, and Trauma,” SAMHSA, May 2018, https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/dtac/supplementalresearchbulletin-firstresponders-may2018.pdf.
13Michael J. Wynn, “Pittsfield Police Department Continuum of Care Options for Department Personnel,” Internal Procedure, 2020; SAMHSA, “First Responders: Behavioral Health Concerns, Emergency Response, and Trauma.”
14Wynn, “Pittsfield Police Department Continuum of Care Options for Department Personnel”; SAMHSA, “First Responders: Behavioral Health Concerns, Emergency Response, and Trauma.”
15Heyman et al., The Ruderman White Paper on Mental Health and Suicide of First Responders.
16{Citation}
17IACP, Symposium on Law Enforcement Officer Suicide and Mental Health: Breaking the Silence on Law Enforcement Suicides (Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2014); Heyman et al., The Ruderman White Paper on Mental Health and Suicide of First Responders.