Sheriff DiPaola's Suicide Note Impounded

when someone becomes an officer of the law, they have so much responsivility thrown on them, thier lives are consummed with the job. My husband is an officer of the law and carries a heavy load all the time and I always hear of depression among them. You know we all need to think The law enforcement officers ARE HUMAN TOO!! They have feelings, emotion, sympathy , love and hurt as anyone else, lets not forget that thought guys. My prayers and best wishes to his family and remember God will help everyone through this terrible ordeal, Bless all of our officers through the world!!

I wonder why people believe that suicide is the only answer. There is this new Fad that's coming out. It's in all the newspapers. I believe it's called "Talking to Friends"

dawnf, we are assuming he committed suicide because of depression not because he was a LEO but because experience has taught us that when a person no matter what their job is completes suicide it is because of depression. Yes some of them have guilt for whatever reason but that in turn causes depression and the depression becomes overwhelming where they can no longer think straight. I have not put him on a pedestal rather I look at him as I do any human being that has issues in their life that overwhelmed them and caused him to take his life. Law Enforcement Officers and even people in my field as a victim assistance counselor see suicides on a regular basis, that is why you see us talking about the depression.

Some are like me and that we also speak from experience. My friend who completed suicide had many issues going on in his life. Did he have a guilty conscience, maybe, but whether he did or not his depression and not a guilty conscience overcame him and he killed himself. None of us put him on a pedestal. In fact suicide of a LEO reminds us that LEOs are humans and suffers the same issues the everyday citizen suffers and that they react in much the same way.

everyone here assumes he was depressed. why was he cleaning his desk. layoff? or someother thing. maybe instead of depression it was a guily conscience. i can understand why most here have him on a pedastal. but we really do not know the true circumstances that pushed him into this action. it truly is a sad ordeal for his family. and they are in my prayers.

R.I.P.

This sort of thing happened at my Dept exactly 1 year ago, when we lost one of ours to a quick fatal act in a similar fasion. And even now it hurts to think about our loss...

I will pray for this man's soul.., as well as for his family and friends.

My heart goes out to Sheriff DiPaola's family. I pray that God will hold them in the palm of His hand and give them the comfort that only our Heavenly Father can give. RIP Sheriff. We don't know why and we don't need to know why. I am so sorry you felt it necessary.

Thank you cops1521 for your thoughtful remarks. I am rather surprised at the attitude of some of our brothers who are condemning this brother. Depression is a terrible thing and we need to be aware of it and make sure none of our friends and brothers are suffering from it. With LEOs it is often very hard to tell. I knew a FBI Agent that had just retired or was about to retire, it was so long ago I have forgotten, who took his life in his bedroom closet. I believe he and his wife were going to go out that evening. Looking back there were signs. Watch for them and NEVER condemn them. I had serious feeling of suicide after I was crippled by an OTJ injury. Lots going on at that time with my marriage being over and custody of my boys and then to be crippled life came crashing down that I was no longer useful. I wasn't at the time either but I could not do that to my boys so struggled through it. Trust me, it could have gone the other way. As LEOs we see so much pain and tragic incidents we tend to keep it all built up and that is why LEOs have such a high suicide rate. That is why we need to not only watch our own 6, we need to watch our brothers.

This is so painfully sad. Many of us make bad decisions and this man must have felt the shame of the choices he made. But everyone can be forgiven and it's so unfortunate that he felt it was worth taking his life. Honor can be restored, not easily, but it can be. I am proud to see that so many of these comments are more supportive and give prayers out to the family rather than criticizing his actions. Of course, they are not actions that we'd condone, but it's so sad this story ended so tragically with so much pain to so many people.