Border Patrol Sees Spike in Suicides

NewsMax ^ | 8/16/2010

[markomalley]

After a bad day on the job as a Border Patrol agent, Eddie DeLaCruz went home and began discussing with his wife how to celebrate her upcoming birthday. Then he casually pressed his government-issued handgun under his chin and pulled the trigger.

"It was the ugliest sound I ever heard in my life," his widow, Toni DeLaCruz, recalled of that day last November. "He just collapsed."

A month later, one of DeLaCruz's colleagues at the Fort Hancock border post put a bullet through his head, too.

Suicides including these have set off alarm bells throughout the agency responsible for policing the nation's borders. After nearly four years without a single suicide in their ranks, border agents are killing themselves in greater numbers. Records obtained by The Associated Press show that at least 15 agents have taken their own lives since February 2008 — the largest spike in suicides the agency has seen in at least 20 years.

It's unclear exactly why the men ended their lives. Few of them left notes. And the Border Patrol seems somewhat at odds with itself over the issue.

Federal officials insist the deaths have nothing to do with the agency, which has doubled in size since 2004, or the increasingly volatile U.S.-Mexico border. But administrators have quietly undertaken urgent suicide-prevention initiatives, including special training for supervisors, videos about warning signs and educational programs for 22,000 agents nationwide.

[UCFRoadWarrior]

It’s hard to believe, I know, but there are freepers still insisting that Ramos and Compean deserved what they got and don’t want any border enforcement.

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That is absolutely baffling....considering the evidence that was revealed.

The two most telling things about the Ramos and Compean case:

1. The feds, MS Fox News, pro-illegal alien GOP, and others claimed that R and C never notified their superiors....however their supervisor was there right after the shooting...and had the two pick up their spent shells. Their supervisors sure knew about the shooting immediately after it happened.

2. The Illegal Alien drug dealer, Oswaldo Aldrete-Davila, while on a special visa to enter the US issued by the Federal Prosecutor in the case....hauled in another half-kilo of pot...this crime was not allowed into evidence during the R and C trial

But, too many still have this wet-dream that the Liberal Globalist Jorge W Boosh was some kind of conservative. Boosh made it easier for Obama to pander to Illegal Aliens, Drug Cartels, and the Narcocracy running Mexico

[donna]

That story doesn’t sound right to me.

[vetvetdoug]

I went to HS in Del Rio, Texas. Many of my classmates were sons and daughters of the BP and many of them went on to serve in the BP. It is stressful, dangerous, and thankless job at many times. The stressors in the job can expose any chink in one’s personal armor and result in the alcoholism and suicide that the article mentions. I believe the numbers are in keeping with any other job that has the thankless stressors involved with the BP.

[UCFRoadWarrior]

You sure have some interesting views, such as what would some old battle scarred Green Beret know about violence and war compared to a chick working an eight hour shift on the American border.

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Obviously you have never been in the military....A lot of Special Forces do not engage in combat on a daily basis...much of what they do is recon, setting up local contacts and supporters, work with villagers in foreign nations, and other tasks

BP agents deal with death and squalor every day....and its a lot different dealing with that on US Soil than say, some Third World country

[ansel12]

Obviously you have never been in the military....

There you go again, I have been in the military, including a LRRP/LRS company.

Your claim that "These BP agents have seen more crap than a Special Forces soldier will ever see. A BP agent along the border these days is like a Special Forces person...only without a weapon" was a joke.

[UCFRoadWarrior]

If Special Forces were on the southern U.S border every year over a hundred thousand wetbacks would be taking a dirt nap and only the dead would know about the operation.

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With the past two Presidents, Obushma, the Special Forces would all be court-martialed if they looked funny at the illegals and drug dealers....much less shot them. It is a lot easier to court-martial a SF soldier than to wrongfully convict a Ramos and Compean.

These attacks on our BP agents are unjustified, and shows that the people attacking them value the rights of Illegal Aliens over the rights of American citizens. Our borders are a mess...and the BP never get the support from American people...or both political parties.

If you are not 100% behind our BP agents....you support Illegal Alien amnesty