How to Deal When the Shit Gets Real Podcast · Rietta Boksha

Danny Coon: Cop Suicide and PTSD

·1 hr 3 min·3 clips

Rieta opens by asking Danny Kuhn how he deals when the shit gets real. Danny answers with a career snapshot from the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, where he spent 31 years and 30 of those years in field operations at different patrol stations. He says it was a good career. He also says it had good days and bad ones, and that the job showed him how much stress officers carry even when they do not call it that. Early on, stress barely came up. Danny says the academy only spent about half an hour on it, and after that the topic mostly disappeared until later years made the pressure harder to ignore. He points to the global war on terrorism as a turning point. Once the conversation around post-traumatic stress grew, especially around military veterans, he started looking at law enforcement through a different lens, especially after retirement. He now talks about post-traumatic stress, PTSI, and suicide. He says the issue is real in cops just as it is in veterans, even though many people still act like it is not there. The numbers worry him. They talk about diagnosis rates that may be only part of the picture, because cops often avoid getting help and active-duty military members can do the same. That silence matters. The episode notes that cops are said to be five times more likely than the general public to experience post-traumatic stress or depression, which puts more weight on the warning signs they are discussing. The conversation then shifts to suicide ideation. Danny brings in psychologist Olivia Johnson, an Air Force veteran and former police officer who now studies suicide and has mapped out several leading causes behind why cops get pushed toward that edge. Relationship problems come first. He says trouble with a spouse or partner can land on top of everything else already built up inside a person, and that one fight or breakup can be the thing that tips the balance. Addiction is another factor. By the close, the message is blunt: law enforcement has to stop kicking the can down the street, keep talking about the problem, and make space for help before another life is lost.

As heard by us

A plainspoken look at police trauma, PTSD, and the silence that keeps it going.

This episode looks at the emotional cost of police work, especially PTSD, PTSI, and suicide ideation. Danny Kuhn, a retired sergeant from the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department in Los Angeles County, California, speaks with the kind of plain authority that comes from living inside…

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Why you'd press play

When you want a frank, steady conversation about police stress, PTSI, and suicide.

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