Ontario police officers who died by suicide honoured in first annual memorial

Hundreds of police officers in dress uniform saluted a Toronto crowd as the names of more than 50 Ontario officers and civilian members who took their own lives were read aloud during a weekend memorial service.

On Sunday, Canada Beyond the Blue – an organization that supports families of law enforcement officers – launched the first annual Ontario Police Suicide Memorial to pay tribute to police members from 13 services across the province who have died by suicide owing to the line of duty as far back as 1958.

“These members stepped forward, ran toward danger, risked their lives to serve and protect, and because of their devotion of duty, they saw things and had experiences that impacted them deeply,” Inspector Stefan Prentice of the Toronto Police Service said in a speech.

“And these experiences, whether accumulated over time or defined by a single tragic incident, significantly contributed to their deaths.”

One of the names read aloud was Michael Pedley, a detective sergeant with the TPS who took his own life in 1987. For his daughter, Melissa Busby, Sunday’s recognition of her father’s death was “surreal,” she said, after 37 years of her family grieving in silence.

“Mental health was something that just wasn’t really spoken of back then,” Ms. Busby said during in an interview.

“Especially when my dad was struggling. The help wasn’t there for him to reach out, and it wasn’t seen as okay to not be okay. Finally, we see the recognition and hear the phrase, ‘Because of the line of duty.’ ”

Canada Beyond the Blue first coined the phrase around five years ago. The organization was co-founded in 2017 by Kristal Jones and Dilnaz Garda, shortly after Ms. Garda lost her 29-year-old brother, Darius, from post-traumatic stress disorder after a fatal shooting of a man who had killed a police officer with his car.

Ms. Garda said Sunday’s memorial was a historic moment for family members, many of whom are the first to notice a change in behaviour. She hopes the annual memorial will continue to highlight that mental injuries, and not just physical ones, are contributing factors in a police officer’s death.

“There’s always going to be a mental health fallout – you cannot expect our police members to go relentlessly to call after call in the worst of situations and think that there would be no impact on the heart and the brain,” Ms. Garda said in an interview.

“Accordingly, we need a system of permanence to remember those who have died because of the line of duty.”

In attendance at the memorial was Premier Doug Ford, who said he hopes the event will serve as a reminder of the work that still needs to be done to tackle the stigma around mental health.

“I know a lot of police officers keep it in,” he said in a speech on Sunday. “They’ll come home, not say a word, and it continues to build up … the best thing to do is reach out, and we’ll be there to support you every which way we can by speaking openly about it.”

Since 1909, there have been about 113 line-of-duty deaths in the OPP. And while there is no formal tracking of the number of police members who have died by suicide, the executive director of the London Police Association, Rick Robson, said it far exceeds the number of line-of-duty deaths in the province.

Mr. Robson said he has been actively discussing mental health with new recruits to help normalize the conversation.

In 2021, 15 months after he retired as OPP provincial constable, Guy Boucher died by suicide. His death was a surprise to his wife, Lynn, who said she was unaware of the warning signs of suicide.

On Sunday, she and her daughter, Veronique, travelled from Ottawa to lay roses at the memorial site in Queen’s Park. Over the last several years, the two women have been publicly speaking to OPP members about the red flags that are commonly missed, such as mood changes.

“To us, he was Papa,” Ms. Boucher said in an interview. “The ultimate gentleman with the biggest heart. He was always out there helping new recruits and coaching officers.

That’s what he loved to do – he took care of people. He just didn’t take care of himself.”