Massachusetts State Trooper Chris O’Neil did not speak about what he saw at work, his wife, Molly, said. He kept those burdens to himself.
But in February 2016, they started to show, she said. He was anxious that he’d be hurt or killed on duty. Later that month, the 44-year-old trooper skipped his annual physical, afraid he’d lose his job if the agency learned he was struggling psychologically, Molly O’Neil said.
That same day, he took his life.
“He was talking about, if I go into this appointment today and they catch that I’m anxious, they’ll take me off the road,” she said, sitting in the living room of the Franklin home they used to share. “He really thought they could come take his uniform.”
O’Neil’s death represents a crisis that continues to trouble the law enforcement profession, according to a recent survey by the state’s Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission: Despite years of state and local efforts to bolster psychological support for police, many officers remain reluctant to use those services. It’s a potentially lethal problem in a profession where exposure to traumatic violence is common and a culture of shame and silence makes seeking help a personal and professional risk, advocates and researchers said.
O’Neil is one of more than 900 law enforcement officers across the country who have died by suicide since 2019, according to First H.E.L.P., an Auburn-based advocacy group for first responders’ mental health.
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POST surveyed 59 police unions across the state, asking about their members’ behavioral health. Nearly half said their officers did not feel comfortable seeking help; 24 percent reported moderate comfort; 17 percent high comfort; and 14 percent were unsure.
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Overwhelmingly, the unions said that stigma around mental illness and fear of career consequences were the biggest barriers to officers using mental health services. About 40 percent also expressed concern about POST, which certifies every officer in the state.
“Survey responses indicated that officers are hesitant to seek behavioral health services, in part, due to fear of certification consequences by the Commission,” the survey authors wrote.
The POST Commission will not deny recertification to officers based on a psychological or physical exam, according to agency spokeswoman Alia Spring. Rather, she wrote in response to a Globe inquiry, the commission seeks to help agencies support their officers’ well-being.
“Supporting the health of police officers is critical given the hazards associated with the profession,” POST Commission executive director Enrique Zuniga said in a statement. “The survey confirms the existence and utilization of important programs, underscores the fact that multiple parties play a role in this effort, and provides some initial insights as to the opportunities to further the goal of enhancing physical and behavioral health.”
Police departments in Massachusetts provide officers with a variety of mental health supports, including employee assistance programs, peer support teams, and confidential counseling, said Michael J. Bradley Jr., executive director of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association. The association also encourages agencies to reduce stigma by openly discussing mental health, ensuring confidentiality in support services, and training officers to recognize signs of stress in themselves and their colleagues.
“While we recognize the progress being made, we also understand that stigma remains a significant barrier for officers seeking these vital services, much like it does in the general population,” Bradley wrote in a statement. “Our organization is committed to fostering a cultural shift that encourages seeking help and supports officers in making their mental health a priority.”
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Law enforcement officers are 54 percent more likely to die by suicide than workers in other occupations, according to a 2020 study by researchers at the State University of New York at Buffalo and the Centers for Disease Control. Detectives, criminal investigators, and patrol officers were most at risk. Other personnel, such as corrections officers and supervisors, had lower but still elevated suicide rates.
For the O’Neil family, those statistics became a shattering reality on Feb. 25, 2016. When Chris O’Neil didn’t come home after his shift, his wife said she called every hospital she could think of, asking if a trooper was in their emergency room.
At 9:30 p.m., she looked out of her bedroom window and saw headlights. She thought it was her husband, home late. Instead, it was a close family friend, a fellow trooper, at her door with awful news.
“I remember falling. I remember losing my breath. I remember thinking, oh, shit, the kids are home,” O’Neil said. “What are they going to do?”
State lawmakers have attempted to address police mental health before. In 2018, the Legislature passed a bill guaranteeing confidentiality when first responders speak to peer counselors.
State Senator Michael Moore, a co-sponsor of that legislation, said the persistence of mental health stigma is troubling, both for officers and the communities they serve. He said individual agencies must make sure their officers have access to the care they need.
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“If we’re going to have a healthy workforce, we need the employers, which are our municipalities, to buy in,” Moore said.
State Senator John Velis, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan who serves on a special state commission studying post-traumatic stress disorder, said what made the difference in his Army unit was when on-the-ground commanders spoke openly about mental health and assured their soldiers they would not face consequences for seeking help. Police chiefs should consider doing the same with their officers, he said.
“In my experience, whether it’s substance use disorders, my own struggles with addiction, or any of the other conditions out there, you talk about it. You talk about it, over and over again,” Velis said.
Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, said local chiefs have a decisive role to play in combating that stigma.
“You need leadership, you need policy, and you need a firewall between getting help and knowing it won’t hurt you professionally,” Wexler said.
But a Globe review of state administrative law records found officers can also face dismissal, skepticism, and financial consequences when mental illness renders them unable to work.
In 2020, a Saugus police officer tried to retire on accidental disability due to post-traumatic stress disorder after he responded to a car crash where a 9-year-old child was hurt, but the town’s retirement board denied his claim without convening a medical panel.
In 2021, the Middlesex County Retirement System did the same to a Tewksbury officer who said he was disabled by PTSD from years of responding to violent crimes.
And the Lawrence retirement board denied a disability claim in 2023 for an officer who said he developed PTSD after performing CPR on a shooting victim and seeing video of a close friend on the force being run over by a car.
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Administrative law judges reversed all three decisions; the latest decision, in the Lawrence case, came on March 21.
One problem is that state law requires officers to file on-the-job disability retirement within two years of their injury, said Leigh Panettiere, an attorney who has represented officers in hundreds of psychological disability cases. That limit does not work for PTSD, which can become disabling years or decades after an initial trauma, Panettiere said.
“People don’t necessarily know when they’ve hit their breaking point,” she said.
State Senator Michael Brady and Representative Kenneth Gordon have filed legislation to eliminate that limit for emotional and psychological injuries. That law would help officers who often struggle through years of doubt and professional anxiety before admitting they need psychological help, Panettiere said.
“There really is a stigma,” she said.
Last week, Molly O’Neil sat in her living room, absently petting her goldendoodle, Buddy. A framed photograph of her family rested behind a fireplace grating: Her and Chris, with their arms on their children, Conor and Charlotte.
Maybe, she said, Chris would still be here, if not for stigma. If the State Police leadership at the time had offered more support and told O’Neil where he could go for help.
“To me, this never would have happened if we had information,” she said.
Dan Glaun can be reached at dan.glaun@globe.com. Follow him @dglaun.