It has to be said.

04/26/2015

Suicide by Cop. There, I said it. My brother-in-law took his life by suicide. He had attempted to leave this world on his own the week before and failed. So, what do you do when you want to leave this world so badly and cannot do it alone. You have someone do it for you.

I just keep thinking about how much planning it must have taken to orchestrate the whole thing. My brother-in-law had been sober for many years. He had a misstep and felt so guilty about it that he decided that he would use a permanent solution to a temporary problem. He got in touch with some of his past acquaintances and spent the night drinking and what ever else you do when you are out of touch with the true present reality. A gun was involved. He apparently fired the gun within the confines of the vehicle and the "friend" got out. What happened next is unclear but what we have been told is the gun became jammed and he was hitting the dash board with it. The sheriffs' showed up and when my brother-in-law got out of the vehicle he pointed the jammed gun at the Sheriff and the sheriffs' partner took him out with a shot gun.

Let's make one thing clear. No one in this family blames the officer. He was doing his job. He was protecting his partner. We wrote an open letter to him to let him know that our family holds no animosity towards him or anyone involved.

My brother-in-law left 3 children. The media were trying to get into the funeral home. We in turn told them that if one picture of my sister-in-law or the children shows up on television we will take legal action.  We asked them to respect our privacy. They set up camera's two blocks away from the funeral home and we formed a tunnel with umbrella's from the door to a van with blacked out windows.

I guess you never know what someone else is going through. I try to keep that in mind. Sometimes I don't treat people as nicely as I could. I get short tempered as much as the other person. I am going to work on that. Tolerance and patience is a trait that I am starting to think needs constant work.

If you know someone who is going through a rough time. Try to get them in touch with professionals that know what to do to help them.

I had to talk about this.

Have a good night.

Phyllis