Three active-duty and one retired member of the LA County Sheriff’s Department have all died by suspected suicide. The first was on November 6th at about 10:30 in the morning in Valencia. The second was only about two hours later in Lancaster.
The third was later in the day at 5:40pm in Stevenson Ranch, and the last was at 7:30 in the morning the next day, November 7th, in Pomona. Sheriff Robert Luna said that they lost a sheriff commander, a deputy sheriff, a custodian assistant, and a retired employee.
The Times has named the first victim as veteran Cmdr. Darren Harris, who was on the force for 25 years. The second was retired Sgt. Greg Hovland. The other two have yet to be named.
The CDC have said that law enforcement and firefighters, “are more likely to die by suicide than in the line of duty.” With this statistic, mental health and suicide should have already been talked about widely. However, they are discussing it more openly now due to the tragedies.
Luna said that they are now looking into employees’ workloads and overtime policies. This is to improve and serve the emotional well-being of LASD employees.
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