“We have a crisis on our hands. A global health crisis.”
That’s what Fonda Bryant, mental health/suicide prevention advocate and founder/CEO of Wellness Action Recovery, Inc., told Carolina Journal in a recent phone interview about the suicide rate among law enforcement across the country, including here in North Carolina.
Since 2022, she has been offering Question Persuade Refer, or QPR suicide prevention training, for free to Charlotte-Mecklenburg (CMPD) recruits for two weeks before they graduate from the police academy.
On July 1, while on duty, CMPD police officer Brent Simpson died by suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He had been with CMPD since 2006, and was most recently assigned to the K-9 unit, and served with his partner, Levi, for six years.
But there have been three other suicides in CMPD over the past two and a half years, along with Simpson’s, bringing the total to four. A female police officer took her life in 2022, and two male police officers died by suicide in 2023.
Police officers often see things others do not on a regular basis; everything from car accident victims, to shooting victims, even including their own.
On April 29, Deputy US Marshal Thomas Weeks Jr., CMPD Officer Joshua Eyer, and North Carolina Adult Corrections workers Sam Poloche and William “Aiden” Elliott were killed, and five other officers were injured by Terry Clark Hughes, Jr during an ambush in East Charlotte. Hughes, who had a long rap sheet, was also killed by police.
“People don’t really realize the trauma that they see, and what they see is not normal, it’s not natural,” Bryant said, adding that two other rookies who graduated the police academy on April 19 have already quit because they were on the scene of the police shooting.
According to CMPD data released Monday, Charlotte’s crime rate is rising, including the current homicide rate of 61 compared to 45 this time last year. Also soaring is a rise in juvenile homicide suspects, increasing 300%, and a 75% increase in juvenile homicide victims in the first half of 2024.
The hard-left, soft-on-crime policies are being blamed by some for the rise in violent crimes in the Queen City.
She said that 45% of police officers turn to substance abuse two years after graduating from the academy, with that number increasing to 85% after five years.
Others, unfortunately, turn to suicide.
According to bluehelp.org, nationwide, there have been 55 (including two from corrections) police suicides this year, and two in North Carolina.
Bryant told CJ that 80% of police officers who died by suicide were white males.
She said the public would have never known about Simpson’s suicide had it not occurred in public and she fears that his death has already been forgotten since it is already out of the news cycle. She told CJ that she wants his and the others’ deaths not to be in vain but instead to be “teachable moments.”
Bryant started her non-profit as a way to bring awareness to mental health and to stop suicide through education and positive action.
She is also a 29-year survivor of suicide herself.
“Twenty-nine years ago, I had no idea that I was struggling with clinical depression because, in the black culture, we’ve always been taught, pray about, don’t claim it, give it to God,” Bryant said. “It’s a sign of weakness, and when you are raised like that, you don’t even take mental health into account. You don’t even talk about it because you don’t want to be labeled as weak.”
She said when someone is suicidal, the pain outweighs the love of your family and friends and says it is worse than having teeth removed, multiple surgeries, and having a baby combined.
“We don’t want to die, we just want that pain to go away, and in that moment, the only way we feel like that pain is going to go away is by taking our own life,” Bryant added.
She credits her Aunt Kellie, also affectionately known as “Aunt Spankie,” for saving her life.
“I remember I told her she could have my shoes,” Bryant recalled. “She called me back and said, are you going to kill yourself? I said yes, and she went into action like a superhero and saved my life.”
Bryant’s shoes were some of her prized possessions, and giving those away is just one of the signs that a person may be thinking about committing suicide.
Other signs include a change in appearance, change in eating habits, turning to drugs and alcohol, talking about death, change in work productivity, isolation, and no longer enjoying things that they used to.
She said police and others do things to mask suicide, so the true number of suicides may never be known.
Bryant also puts a preference on the state’s Warm Line as a first contact ahead of the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline because if someone can talk to someone first, it may prevent them from going into crisis or becoming suicidal.
QPR Training Saves Lives
She offers QPR training not just to police officers but also to others, and it has saved lives, including that of Brigham Young University Football player Chaz Ah You, who posted a tweet that didn’t seem quite right to her.
Included in the training is how to pick up on cryptic language.
“For instance, if you saw on somebody’s Facebook page or TikTok and they said they had pasta for dinner, it could be code for I’m gonna kill myself, or I’m in crisis, or I finished the shampoo and conditioner, or I finished my Netflix subscription,” Bryant said. “That’s cryptic language. There are suicide avatars and images that we go through in training.”
She follows up with rookie officers after training, giving them her phone number and email address so they can talk with her confidentially. She also gives them information, including numbers for a crisis line.
Once they are finished with QPR training, officers won’t receive any other mental health or suicide prevention training, according to Bryant, who also says that veteran officers have been asking her about the training.
Bryant also has suicide prevention signs up in 12 parking decks across Charlotte, but she wants them to go across the state.
House Bill 858, Fonda Bryant Suicide Prevention Signage Act, was filed in the North Carolina General Assembly in April 2023 and has been sitting in House Appropriations ever since.
It would set aside $500,000 to establish a grant program for signage in parking garages that provides information on suicide prevention.
She has a similar bill in the Massachusetts Legislature after one of their Democratic state senators, Paul Feeney reached out to Bryant after reading a story in the Boston Herald.
Bryant said she would like to see the bill go nationally.
She has contacted various people to ask for funding for the training for not only CMPD but for police officers across the state.
Bryant said that Brittany Jones, with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) Division of Mental Health, was receptive to the request and is currently writing a proposal for NCDHHS.
She is also scheduled to meet with CMPD Police Chief Johnny Jennings in early August.
Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles’s staff emailed Bryant to let her know she would not be able to meet with her but shared the request with her staff.
She also emailed City Manager Marcus Jones, and Attorney General, and Democratic candidate for governor Josh Stein, but she hasn’t received a reply.
Bryant will train her 197th class on Sept. 11, and her next free online QPR class will be held on Aug. 17.
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