(IL) Losing Officer Rappley, and Helping Stop Police Suicide

Widow campaigns to help cops cope
December 2007
If anyone were going to see it coming, it would have been her. But nothing could have prepared Char Rappley for what she read in a note she found hanging casually from her family's kitchen cabinet in December 2006. "I'm in the bedroom. I've taken my life. Do not come in the room... call police." It was her husband's writing. "As informed as I was during Mike's illness, it's strange that I didn't know he was at that point," Rappley said about her husband, an officer with the Batavia Police Department. Mike Rappley had been struggling with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder for years, and Char Rappley had known it. "I knew he was struggling, but I didn't know his thoughts were suicidal." Then again, police officers are very good at hiding things, Rappley said... the officers will keep their feelings inside, like her husband often did. She wants that to change. According to the National Police Suicide Foundation, suicide is the No. 1 killer of police officers... Rappley has made her life's mission the establishment of suicide awareness and prevention programs during officer training... Speaking to criminal justice and behavior studies students at local community colleges is one way Rappley is evoking change... "If they're aware of the symptoms (of post-traumatic stress disorder) right off the go, they can get it taken care of before it takes on a life of its own," she said. The inability to get certain images out of one's head, hyper vigilance, and a change in emotional behavior are all key signs of PTSD after a crisis on the job, Rappley explained... "Who knows? Five years down the road maybe something I said will click in their mind (and they'll get help)...

Batavia Police Department