Former Cop's Book Explores Police Suicide


Clarke Paris wonders if anyone around these parts remembers the North Hollywood bank robbery shootout 14 years ago?
Los Angeles TV stations covered the incident live, which ended with both heavily armed perpetrators killed, 11 police officers and seven bystanders injured and extensive damage to vehicles and other property. Despite 2,000 rounds of ammunition exchanged between the police and robbers, no officers were killed in the line of duty that day.

But Paris, himself a former cop, also wonders if anyone knows that three officers involved in the shootout later committed suicide.
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Paris, who served as a sergeant with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police
Department, has gone on to extensively explore “the pain behind the badge.” That's the title of a documentary he made on police stress and suicide, subjects he also tackles in a new book.

My Life For Your Life documents the author's personal struggles with police stress, his wife's response and the biographies of eight cops who took their own lives.

The book also includes letters written to those officers post-suicides by their spouses, family members and other loved ones. A psychologist chips in a chapter on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Paris signs copies of his book and talks about police stress from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday at Martha's Bookstore on Balboa Island. It's free to attend.

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