Washington, DC - Patrick Yoes, National President of the Fraternal Order of Police, thanked President Trump for signing H.R. 3735/S. 2746, the “Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection Act,” into law on Tuesday.

“Law enforcement officers, unfortunately, see the very worst of humanity with some statistics suggesting that a police officer will experience more traumatic events in six months than the average person will experience in a lifetime,” said Yoes. “We know that officers in crisis need help, and the Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection Act will give us the information we need to be successful in our efforts to help them.”

The “Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection Act” will collect information on law enforcement and former law enforcement officer suicides and attempted suicides and use it to improve existing suicide prevention programs. This will help inform us in our efforts to assist officers who are struggling and help decrease the number of officers we lose to suicide every year.

“Every day officers put themselves at risk physically to protect the public. But officers also face mental health challenges that can result in depression, substance abuse, post traumatic stress disorder, marital problems, and, all too often, suicide,” said Yoes. “While much has been done to protect officers’ physical safety, the sad reality is that we lose more officers to suicide every year than die in the line of duty.”

“We would not only like to thank the President for signing this bill into law but Representatives Mike Quigley, Madeleine Dean, and Gregory Steube who introduced the legislation in the House and Senator Catherine Cortez Masto who introduced the legislation in the Senate,” said Yoes. “This law is an important first step in helping prevent unnecessary suicides in the law enforcement community.”

The Fraternal Order of Police is the largest law enforcement labor organization in the United States, with more than 351,000 members.