An NYPD officer died by suicide after he was placed on restricted duty — a situation in which cops have a higher risk of self-harm

• An NYPD officer died by suicide on Tuesday after he was placed on restricted duty, reports say.
• He jumped from a building next to the offices where officers' health evaluations are conducted.

A New York Police Department officer on Tuesday died by suicide after reports say he had been placed on a restricted assignment and had his service weapon confiscated.

Shortly after noon today the officer — whose name was not released by police pending a next of kin notification — jumped from a Queens apartment building adjacent to the NYPD Medical Division, where mental and physical health evaluations for the department are conducted, The Daily Mail reported.

In a statement emailed to Insider, police confirmed the officer was a five-year veteran of the force and had been assigned to the 121st Precinct on Staten Island.

The New York Daily News reported the officer was recently placed on restricted duty and had been struggling with his mental health, adding he had just left a department-mandated psychiatrist appointment before his death.

"Please help me," NYPost reported the officer wrote in a social media post in November. "Please love me. Please care for me. Please listen to me. PLEASE COMMUNICATE WITH ME. PLEASE SPEND TIME ON ME!"

The NYPD did not answer Insider's request for clarification about whether the officer's change in assignment was due to disciplinary action or internal investigation, or a general concern regarding his welfare.

Steve Hough, a 20-year veteran of law enforcement and the COO of First Help, a mental health advocacy nonprofit that tracks first responder suicides, told Insider officers are often at higher risk of hurting themselves if they are taken off their regular assignment or are under investigation.

"We see — I don't want to say we see a lot, but we get a lot of reports of officers who committed suicide because they're under internal investigation," Hough told Insider. "Or because they were getting ready to be arrested."

Often, Hough said, officers who die by suicide have additional complicating factors such as divorce or money problems, but having their service weapon confiscated or an investigation initiated can make them feel alienated from their work community, which is often deeply entwined with an officer's sense of personal identity.

"We see that culture where struggling mentally is looked upon as a sign of weakness," Hough told Insider. "And there is very little support from, for lack of a better term, guys like me — the guys who have been there for 25 years and we're not used to dealing with mental fitness."

Due to that internal culture — and a sense that officers should be the ones providing help instead of receiving it — Hough said, officers are unlikely to share their struggles with others in their department.

"We definitely know that the stigma that's attached to it is the number one reason they don't ask for help," Hough said. "It's that fear of 'if I say that, what's going to happen to my career, what's going to happen?'"

The NYPD has long faced a mental health crisis among its officers. Ten NYPD officers died by suicide in 2019, NBC News reported, prompting the department to order its officers to complete mandatory suicide prevention training, according to Staten Island Live. Since the training and launch of several peer-to-peer outreach groups, four NYPD officers died by suicide in 2020 and three in 2021 the New York Post reported. Last year, four NYPD officers died by suicide, according to the Daily Mail.

"I want every member of the NYPD to know that your department is here for you," Commissioner Keechant L. Sewell said in a statement offering condolences to the officer's family that was emailed to Insider by NYPD representatives.

Sewell's statement added: "Before we can help others, we must ensure that we too are well. To our members who are struggling, I implore you to seek assistance from the resources available to you — either within or outside the department. Asking for help is one of the most courageous acts that you can perform."