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The Hidden Crisis: How This Former Officer Nearly Became Another Police Suicide Statistic · Heroes Behind the Badge

0:10
Dennis Collins: Glad to see you again.
0:11
Thanks for coming back and a warm welcome to the Heroes Behind
0:15
the Badge podcast, where we tell real stories about real cops.
0:21
We expose the fake news about police and we bring you the real truth.
0:27
This podcast is brought to you by citizens behind the badge, the leading
0:31
voice of the American people in support of the men and women of law enforcement.
0:36
CBB, citizensbehindthebadge.org, citizensbehindthebadge.org for more information.
0:46
I'm Dennis Collins.
0:47
I'm your host.
0:48
I'm one of the founding board members of Citizens Behind the Badge.
0:51
I'm joined today by my colleagues Bill Erfurth and Craig Floyd.
0:56
Bill Erfurth.
0:57
He's also a founding board member of Citizens Behind the Badge.
1:01
He's a retired Miami Dade police lieutenant with 26 years of decorated service.
1:07
And Craig Floyd is our founder, our president, and the CEO of Citizens Behind the Badge.
1:13
You probably know Craig more about his role as the founding
1:18
CEO emeritus of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.
1:24
so today, Craig.
1:26
And Bill, we'll be talking to our very special guest.
1:31
We try to bring again, the real Heroes Behind the Badge to this program.
1:36
And we have one today, heroes come in all different shapes and sizes.
1:41
And today our hero, his name is David Berez and David to this very day is still earning his badge every day.
1:52
David's a husband, a father, a public servant.
1:55
he retired more than 20 years ago.
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With the East Windsor, New Jersey police department, he has total of 34 years in emergency, services.
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He did volunteer EMS work.
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He served as the coordinator for the office of emergency management in this community.
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He's lived a life of service.
2:15
He is a true public servant.
2:18
After retirement.
2:20
He decided to take another path.
2:24
One of the things he has done, which a lot of people aspire to, but very few people ever complete
2:30
is a book, a resilient life, a cop's journey in pursuit of purpose.
2:38
This all springs from his lifelong desire to help.
2:43
Other people, he has formed a company that he works.
2:50
he is the president of the company.
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he is a master resiliency trainer, a certified master resiliency trainer.
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He is also has earned his master's degree from the university of Pennsylvania and applied for.
3:07
Positive psychology, throughout his career, he's received many awards and accolades.
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He's a highly decorated public servant, but I think the most interesting thing about David is
3:18
his vulnerability, his transparency, his willingness to tell difficult personal stories about his journey.
3:30
And his career in law enforcement.
3:33
And I think one of the most staggering statistics, Oh, and I don't want to forget to mention this.
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he, since, since 2022 has been a member of the citizens behind the badge law enforcement advisory council.
3:48
We respect his opinion on so many things, particularly on the mental,
3:53
the, hidden mental health issues that are occurring today in law enforcement.
4:00
David, I welcome you.
4:03
Glad to have you.
4:04
Thanks for taking time.
4:05
This issue that we're going to discuss today.
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It's mysterious, it's unspoken, it's hidden.
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Okay.
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And I, being a law enforcement parent and someone who has gone through some of the difficulties that you
4:25
have gone through and more, I have a particular personal interest in what you're talking about because it is.
4:33
Almost an epidemic.
4:36
I read some stats, I think, in your book that shocked me.
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Police officers are more likely to die by suicide than a line of duty death.
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the line of duty deaths are hyped.
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They're, memorialized as they should be in the media, but death by suicide.
4:59
It's a secret, it's a stigma.
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And when I learned this floored me.
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Law enforcement officers are 54 percent more likely than the general population to die by suicide.
5:14
That floored me.
5:15
That's crazy.
5:17
So let's start off today, with a question.
5:21
As a subject matter expert in this, what the hell is going on?
5:25
this is, this shouldn't be what's going on, David.
5:30
David Berez: So there's a lot going on right at the same time, we're not doing anything about it.
5:36
So the more problem persists without intervention, the greater the problem becomes.
5:42
So yes, that, you are 3.
5:46
8 times more likely to die by your own hand than you are by a suspect on the street.
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Yes, you are much at much greater risk, by more than 50%.
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To die by your own hand than the general public.
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Another interesting factoid, cause I get into the stat weeds on, some of this stuff.
6:08
The average citizen, average person beyond the age of 50 will live another 30 to 35 years.
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The average police officer beyond the age of 50 will live 7.
6:22
5 years.
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Think about that for a second, that includes suicide, which
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is about half those, half that, Delta, half that change.
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and the rest of it is, just disease that our bodies are breaking down after the course of our careers.
6:43
So it's terrifying to think that we put in all of this time and, from a little cynical point of view, you don't have
6:49
the, you don't have the opportunity to collect your full pension, but the,
6:55
it's, scary.
6:56
And we do, I think we've done a much better job in the last five to eight years or so of raising awareness that
7:04
there's an issue, but we're not doing anything to solve for the problem.
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And, so there's a lot of people that are out there telling their
7:11
story, raising the red flag and their, heart is in the right place.
7:18
Unfortunately, so many of them are not trained properly and how to convey some of this information.
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And quite frankly, I think they're re traumatizing people through their own stories, during these
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conventions or speeches or whatever, and they're not giving them the
7:35
tools that they really need to do to help people better themselves.
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Of course.
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there's kind of two sides to this.
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There's the people that need the clinical therapy where you need a psychologist, psychiatrist to
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take you from like negative 10 to zero, just to the survival space.
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And then positive psychology, which is more of my realm is the thriving space, zero to positive 10.
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So positive psychology doesn't look at amelioration of a problem.
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It looks at people that have solved for their problem.
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And now what do you do?
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How do you stop yourself from either going back down that rabbit hole, down that spiral?
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or how do you continue to upgrade that spiral into a place where you're thriving?
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So that's the stuff I'm looking at.
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Craig Floyd: known you for more than a dozen years.
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you are one of the most talented, passionate High energy, a guy
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that seemingly has, everything you want in life, right?
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A good family man.
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and, then I read your book, a resilient life, and you were kind
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enough to send me the manuscript before it was ever published and.
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I, I knew a different David Beres when I finished reading that book, sadly, you were almost one of those
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police suicide statistics and you bared your soul and told that story.
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And I want to read an excerpt from the introduction that you wrote.
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It says.
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While my body aches from years of carrying the physical and emotional weight of the job and
9:17
other experiences, it is the lack of touch where I endure the most pain.
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I can no longer feel my mother's embrace.
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I struggle to hug my own kids, and I'm challenged by the inability to show affection to my wife,
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because through it all, I have lost the ability to feel love.
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I just shook me when I read it.
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I'm like, this is not the David Berez I know.
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And then I read the story.
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I hope our, viewers understand what happened in your police life that got you to that point.
9:56
David Berez: Yeah.
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So even hearing that back is incredibly emotional for me.
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A lot changes in your brain.
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You don't exit the job, the same person you entered as.
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And, there's a scientific term called neuroplasticity.
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And what that entails is your brain changes over time based
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on the experiences that it has and its ability to learn.
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where you are at in the moment and through habit formation, it
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adapts and overcomes to give you a new normal over and over again.
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And your new normal, when you be, when you get onto the job is just who you are, who you were raised to be.
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Most of us started, in our early twenties, some people as young as 18, which is insane to me because you're
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still a child and, You are your most formative years as a young adult become through the traumas that you see and
11:04
deal with and manage and are exposed to over the course of your career.
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And for me, my biggest event of the initial part of my career was 9 11 and, I was a 9 11 rescuer.
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it's a whole nother.
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Story we can go into, but, it really shaped how I thought and how I process things and how I saw the world.
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And I truly, from an early stage of my career, recognize what real evil looks like, and, you begin to.
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Disassociate from everyday, normal, quote unquote, normal life, and you begin to believe that the real
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evil that you're always confronted with is normal, and that just changes who you are, it changes your
12:00
perception of things, and for me, it took the love out of my heart.
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I loved the job, but you know what?
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That's an intangible.
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That job's never going to love you back.
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The people you work with are your buddies.
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Great.
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They'll be there in the worst of moments if you need them, but they're not the ones they're going home to.
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They're never going to love you back.
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Your bosses, they're your bosses.
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They have a responsibility to you as an employee, and maybe you have some
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really good leaders that care for you, but they will never love you back.
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And through all of that, I forgot.
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I lost the ability to love and when I came home, I was just not an affectionate person anymore.
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I, didn't know how to hug my kids and mean it.
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I didn't know how to have a,
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loving relationship with my wife.
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It was very functional.
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And, yeah, it was really.
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That was the hardest part for me when I realized I was going through that.
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And you don't recognize it right away.
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Like those things change slowly over time until I don't know that I really realized it until I retired.
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What I had left behind from when I started.
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Bill Erfurth: So I want to jump in real quick and just say, cop to cop, I can completely relate to what
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you're just saying, and one little antidote about this is I remember as
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a young cop and you'd be around the old guys, the, the old school people.
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And you'd look at them and be like, wow, why is that guy?
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So hateful and cynical, everything sucks.
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Everything is terrible.
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And you, and I, would say to myself, I will never be that will never be me.
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And then lo and behold, it becomes me.
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and it's shocking how cold hearted you become.
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David Berez: Yeah.
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And on the other side of your career, when you're ready to leave, you've now
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spent 35 years in this neuroplastic change of your brain towards the worst.
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and it doesn't change the day you retire.
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It's going to take years to unwind that it just, as long as it took you to get screwed up, it could take you that long.
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To get unscrewed up and, there's a great book out there, with all due respect to language called unfuck yourself.
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And, it, it doesn't, it's not specifically about police work, but it's a great way to understand how your
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brain works when things go sideways on you for an extended period of time, and then how to recover from those in
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hopefully a shorter period of time, but it can be a one to one ratio.
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Craig Floyd: David, you, said to me once, and I'll never forget it when we were talking about Derek Chauvin,
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who was the cop that, was convicted of the death of George Floyd.
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And you said it had nothing to do with, racism.
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it had all to do with the fact that this was an unfeeling, cop who had lost the sense of empathy for a
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fellow human being because of the job and, the career that he had.
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Talk to me a little bit about that.
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David Berez: Yeah, I think it's important just to caveat that by saying we need to separate out the
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media narrative from what's practical and, objective in that story.
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And it's always a shame and sucks when somebody dies.
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But you have to separate out the emotion from the pragmatic approach of how you look at it.
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And yeah, Derek Chauvin, technique aside on what he used.
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And there's some debate in that too.
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There's some debate whether the technique was actually used, depending on what camera angles you look at.
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But, yeah, when you look in that dude's eyes, he was vacant.
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There was like a complete we're open sign here and nobody's home.
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the depth in his eyes was creepy to me and looking back at some of his disciplinary history, there was some
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major red flag warnings there, and he was a full on lack of compassion, lack of empathy, burned out guy.
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he had seen too much, he had done too much, and he no longer had a
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soul, and that doesn't make him evil, that doesn't make him a bad man.
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It just makes him somebody that's no longer fit for that job and somebody
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that needs real clinical support because, my man was in bad, way.
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And I think that's what ultimately caused the death of the suspect was Chauvin's mental health crisis.
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I just don't think he had it together enough to be able to do the job effectively anymore.
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He should have been out a long time ago.
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Dennis Collins: you, you mentioned, I think in the book, and I think I've talked to you about this
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before, the average law enforcement officer experiences 20 traumatic events per month doing their job.
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The average citizen, civilian, maybe experiences five really traumatic events in their whole life.
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Is that part of what you're talking about with Chauvin, perhaps?
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David Berez: yeah.
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So the, the, numbers there, just so we have them straight are the
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average citizen is four to six, traumatic events in their lifetime.
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The average, police officer will have approximately 20 per year and four to 600 within their career.
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so yes, that, that accumulation of, traumatic events that you're exposed to absolutely goes to your mind state and.
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It goes beyond your mind state.
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It's how your body reacts to things.
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Even if his mind was, and I know this sounds like excuses, but it's not.
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It's an explanation.
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Even if his mind is telling him, this is not right.
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Let's say, when the suspect passes out or the suspect loses consciousness, the, Average person would say,
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okay, let's recalibrate and let's move on to a different tactic or technique here, support this guy's
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health, and life, and we're still going to accomplish our goal.
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He may have been thinking that I can't say if he was or wasn't, nobody can be in his head, right?
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But his body was locked up.
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His brain and his body were disconnected and there's a great book by Bessel van der Kolk called The Body Keeps the
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Score and it goes into talking about how every cell in your body stores your
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overall stress exposure and there's this huge, can be a huge disconnect.
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Between your thoughts and how your body reacts to things.
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Now that can cause medical issues.
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It can cause, there's a whole bunch of different things.
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It's, a pretty thick book and goes into a lot of the science, but yeah, it's quite possible that man's exposure
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across the years of his job, not only potentially caused him to make bad choices, but maybe in his head, he
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was making the right choices and his body just wouldn't respond to them.
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Which is wild, right?
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the average person is going, yeah, excuse bullshit, but it's, reality because when you look at a trauma
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response of an average person at a car crash, how many people have stopped
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at a car crash, had these big bulgy eyes staring at it and haven't moved.
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To help somebody that's screaming for help, which is, we can go into that
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as a separate type of conversation as well, but that's a stress response.
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He was having a full blown panic attack, not the suspect, but the officer.
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And yeah, it's, he was on that job way too long.
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And there was some red flags well before that incident occurred.
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So shame on the department for not having solved for it ahead of time.
20:43
Craig Floyd: I want to read something to you from the book.
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David talks about the types of traumatic events.
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And I think when we talk about a traumatic event, it's like, what are we talking about?
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David goes into some pretty good descriptive stories here.
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He says he saw two children killed in a car crash.
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17 year old boy who died by suicide.
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He was hit by a train he told a 10 year old child that his only parent had died, and now he was an orphan.
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And, he saw a suicide victim hanging from a tree, a day laborer who fell into a commercial wood chipper.
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my goodness.
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my question to you, Bill, and you and David maybe can have an exchange
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on this, you must have experienced those same types of traumatic events.
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And yet, in talking to you, I don't think you ever got to the depths that David did in terms of
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depression, in terms of thoughts of suicide, alcohol, et cetera.
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And I'm just wondering, what was your mindset?
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You dealt with those same traumatic events and yet somehow you came out differently.
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You two need to talk about what's the difference, what helped you and what, what was harmful to David.
22:07
Bill Erfurth: Yeah, and absolutely.
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and I just want to preface that by saying, your average person, as we were talking about traumatic incidents,
22:15
your average person, and this is a story that I've said a hundred times to lots of people, want you to explain
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what it's like to be a cop and all these things, as a cop, I would see 20 dead people A month, which was
22:32
probably average working in a big city and so the, story I would say is,
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probably most people in their lives, see 20 dead people their entire life.
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And most of them are at funerals and they're cleaned up and their
22:44
lips are slow, so closed and the makeup and the whole nine yards.
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And as a cop, you're seeing people that are just mangled and destroyed and just craziness, right?
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So it absolutely adds up.
22:56
And that's why a lot of, people are, why are cops so jaded and cynical?
23:01
it becomes a defensive mechanism.
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It's a coping mechanism so that you can just get through the day and survive.
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And I did get to a point in my career and everyone wants to go and see the train wreck.
23:13
Everyone wants to see the gore and the craziness, right?
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That's why people go to the movies.
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That's why you got the, rubberneckers on the highways.
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As a young cop, and I wasn't in uniform on the road for a very long time, quite
23:28
frankly, maybe eight years of my whole career, but I would go to every call.
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So even if it wasn't my call and there was a decapitated body, I had to go by because I had to see
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that if it was someone that was dead in a car, if it was a, if
23:44
it was a brutal murder scene or a mutilation or any kind of crazy thing.
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I went to those and then as a good cop, I used to want to go to all the police funerals.
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And my God, when I was younger, the number of police funerals we went to, in my first five years
24:03
on the job, four of my friends were murdered in the line of duty.
24:07
So you don't forget those things.
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And all of that adds up and adds up.
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And I finally got to the point, maybe after 10 years on the job.
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And I said, why am I exposing myself to all this?
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Why?
24:19
I don't need to go to all those calls.
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Those are my calls.
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I wasn't dispatched to that.
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And I, and then I said, you know what?
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I'm not going to a funeral again.
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And I never have gone to a funeral since then, and I never went to those calls unless I absolutely had to, if that
24:33
was my job, not that I didn't care, but it was just self preservation.
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So to drill down further into answering your question, I think that
24:45
the reason I never had nightmares, I never thought about suicide.
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I looked at suicide and I thought, man, if you.
24:57
If you committed suicide, you can't even bitch about it anymore.
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kind of thing.
25:04
I feel that I just grew up that way.
25:07
I grew up in a very stable home, a lot of support, good friends.
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And I look at different guys, girls that I worked with, cops that I worked with.
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And I think that the background and the way you grew up has a lot to do with it.
25:24
David Berez: Yeah, I would agree with that and don't you say something about that in your book?
25:29
Yeah.
25:30
Yeah.
25:31
so I would also add that, There's a lot to be said about having an innately optimistic attitude and which bill,
25:42
I, know you, and I know you have, that's just generally your personality.
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And I did not grow up in a very stable, I don't want to say it was
25:51
unstable, but it was a unconventional household where there were some issues.
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I. Unfortunately had a, negative experience with a family friend, and sexual abuse, for a short
26:06
period of time, which obviously nothing normal about that.
26:11
so there are other issues, but I'm not the only one, right?
26:15
I'm not here to cry wolf.
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I'm not here to be a victim.
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It's not me.
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again, these are maybe some explanations and they're not excuses for anything.
26:24
but I had growing up, I didn't.
26:27
necessarily have the positive support about, man, you can do whatever you,
26:32
set your heart out to, man, you've got this, you're a smart dude.
26:35
I didn't have that.
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what I had was, this is not what Jewish boys do.
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I had, this probably isn't for you.
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I had,
26:49
You're maybe you should look at community college.
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meanwhile, I graduated from an Ivy league university with my master's degree.
26:57
so I had a lot of those,
27:01
risk management issues in my household, that nobody wanted to set me up for
27:06
failure because I wasn't seen as someone that was, setting myself up for success.
27:13
So it was done out of love and compassion.
27:16
But it wasn't done out of intelligence.
27:19
So growing up there, I, that caused me to have a lot of negative self talk.
27:26
And I think as I went through some of these experiences on the job, I
27:32
didn't have that optimistic outlook as, you may have had Bill, and I think.
27:41
I just looked at all of these things and speaking from like a music perspective, I looked at all of these things as a D
27:47
minor, versus possibly a C note, and, it, they, that D minor adds up after a while and it breaks you down because
27:58
it's just such a negative feeling, whereas if you can look at something
28:03
and see Not why is this happening to me, but why is this happening for me?
28:08
And then recalibrate from that.
28:10
That's a positive, optimistic, resilient outlook.
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And I didn't have that until after my career.
28:18
So I think that's, I think that's a big difference.
28:20
If you can do
28:23
Bill Erfurth: David.
28:24
And we want to drill down on this with you because this is the real heart of the matter.
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We're talking about death by suicide.
28:30
We're talking about cops that kill themselves at an unprecedented rate.
28:37
Let's tell your story.
28:38
Tell us what happened with you.
28:41
It's my understanding that came up twice.
28:45
And talk about the circumstances, talk about why and what, and how did you persevere and survive?
28:53
David Berez: So the first, go around, which was actually the more serious, planned out version of it, was in 2019.
29:05
I had an ridiculous IA complaint.
29:09
no, it wasn't a complaint.
29:10
It was, I had a broken body camera, that literally there were, it's
29:15
junk equipment, it broke, and I was leaving for vacation that day.
29:22
My immediate supervisor was like, yeah, don't worry about it.
29:25
Just we'll figure it out when you get back after your vacation.
29:29
I was like, sure.
29:30
I should probably write this up now.
29:32
He's nah, seriously, don't worry about it.
29:34
I get back from the 10 day vacation and I was like, Hey man, we got, to write up that body camera.
29:40
He goes, for what?
29:43
I will remember the last shift it broke.
29:45
He goes, you're just telling me this now.
29:48
I'm like, gotcha.
29:49
I see the game.
29:50
We're about to start playing.
29:51
Cool.
29:52
Got it on board.
29:53
And clearly he was coached.
29:55
Because he's not smart enough to come up with this plan on his own.
29:59
And, so I wrote the report.
30:03
And, I got it back and said, we need more detail about all of these different things.
30:10
Meanwhile, the details were like crap and shit that I'm not going to remember two weeks later at that point.
30:17
And, so I was like, could have been this, but it could have
30:19
been this, could have been this, but it could have been this.
30:22
And they're like, no, you got to pick one.
30:24
if I picked the wrong one, now I'm lying.
30:27
So they were trying to set me up for failure.
30:31
And I wasn't going to play that game.
30:33
And, so then in their minds, I became insubordinate as a result of the internal affairs investigation.
30:42
And long story short, I ended up getting 16 days suspension for a
30:49
broken body camera that, by the way, it wasn't even the camera.
30:52
It was the casing of the camera and nothing happened to the camera.
30:55
The camera worked.
30:56
The funny part is that the stories going around the station about why I broke it were hysterical.
31:03
did he have sex with the mayor?
31:04
Did he do this?
31:05
Did he do that?
31:07
the countless, accounts of what David could have done to purposely, whatever.
31:16
in the end I learned, I'll, backtrack for a second.
31:22
So I get the punishment and I was, before I got the punishment, actually over the 16 days, I figured that
31:29
I was probably going to get fired for just the litany of things and the way they were setting it up.
31:36
And I couldn't handle that.
31:38
I had figured that the pain to my family and myself and the embarrassment of getting fired would
31:47
be less than if I just eliminated myself from the circumstances.
31:53
And how irrational, right?
31:58
So just putting a pause there for a second, it's very difficult to get a
32:03
good bead on suicide when we can't talk to the experts because they're gone.
32:10
And, there's.
32:14
Very little opportunity to get into the mindset of committing the act because most people don't survive it.
32:25
now me, I don't want to say I survived it because I never actually committed the act.
32:29
It's not like I shot myself and survived.
32:32
I never pulled the trigger, but we can get into that in a second.
32:36
So my mindset was that the embarrassment and the outcomes would be less traumatic to my family if I was eliminated from
32:47
the equation versus being fired, but what an irrational way of looking at it.
32:53
But that's what goes on in your head when you're stuck with this pain that
32:57
you don't know how to manage, you really get these irrational thoughts.
33:01
So I had, that morning I had.
33:06
come off night shift and said goodbye to my platoon as we all went off on our ways and they had
33:13
no idea, obviously, but I knew that I was saying goodbye for good.
33:17
And, I was driving home, sitting at the traffic light, making,
33:23
about to make a left towards, my house off the main road.
33:28
And, I was in the next town over from where I worked and my plan
33:32
was to pull into the parking lot of their PD and blow my brains out.
33:36
I already had my gun in my lap.
33:38
The funny, part is if there's a funny part, I was actually, there's no traffic on the road at, six 30 in the morning
33:44
on a, whatever day that, I don't know, I think it was a Tuesday actually.
33:49
And I'm sitting at the red light waiting for the light to change before I turn on to the other street where the PD is at.
33:56
Who cares?
33:57
What are they going to give me a ticket for?
33:58
blowing my brains out?
33:59
Who cares?
34:01
like just completely irrational shit.
34:04
And, while I'm sitting at that traffic light, my phone rings.
34:08
And it was my older son.
34:11
And, who was,
34:14
probably 12 or 13 at the time.
34:17
And, He's Hey man, Hey daddy.
34:21
I just wanted to say hi.
34:23
I didn't know if you'd be home before I left for school.
34:26
So I just wanted to say good morning and say, I love you.
34:28
I'll see you later.
34:29
So we had a three or four minute conversation in that window.
34:34
I had made the left turn driven past the police station where I planned to execute this and just kept on driving.
34:42
And by the time I hung up the phone, I was at another intersection down at the other end of that road and my
34:49
moment had passed and I don't know why I didn't just pull into another
34:54
parking lot, but there was this window that mysteriously he caught me in.
35:00
And I drove through that window with him on the phone and I got home like nothing ever happened.
35:08
It was a typical morning, sent the kids off to school and my wife went off
35:13
to work and I lied in bed, opened the window, sun shining in, air coming in.
35:20
I never felt so alive in that piece of my life.
35:25
Craig Floyd: Never share that with your wife, by the way.
35:28
David Berez: the first time she heard that story is when she read the book.
35:33
And what about your son?
35:34
He has not read the book and I have not shared the story yet with him.
35:39
Bill Erfurth: How old is he now?
35:41
David Berez: 17.
35:43
Bill Erfurth: That would be interesting to see how he relates and understands and feels about that whole situation.
35:50
David Berez: Yeah, I agree.
35:51
it's one of those things where you always say it's just not the right time, maybe later.
35:55
Yeah.
35:56
And later, They're later is not on the calendar ever.
36:02
so it's,
36:06
Bill Erfurth: as your kid probably looks at you as his father, his mentor, his
36:11
rock, somebody looks up to, and then to share that story of vulnerability of.
36:17
That side of you that maybe he never thought of is interesting, but the
36:21
dynamic of him then knowing that it was him saved you is very powerful.
36:28
David Berez: It is.
36:29
And,
36:32
as vulnerable as I am, and I appreciate, even in the intro to, all of our conversation today that was mentioned,
36:40
I haven't had the strength yet to have that conversation with him.
36:47
Craig Floyd: David, I've heard from others that, that have dug deeper into this issue of police and firefighter
36:54
suicide, very similar numbers that, it's the fact that police are exposed to death on a regular basis.
37:03
Bill mentioned maybe 20 dead people he saw in a typical month while he was a police officer in Miami.
37:12
and then you have easy access to a weapon, a gun, that you're very comfortable with.
37:20
you fire it all the time, target practice, et cetera.
37:25
how much, do you think that plays into the higher rate of suicide among police officers?
37:30
Easy access.
37:32
To a method of committing suicide and as a comfortableness, if you will, with death.
37:39
David Berez: That's a great question.
37:40
And, the research bears out that it's statistically insignificant.
37:46
Interesting.
37:47
Yeah.
37:47
So
37:48
Bill Erfurth: David, I've, I have an interesting question for you.
37:51
What's your safe space?
37:54
Where do you feel the safest?
37:56
David Berez: That's a great question.
38:02
now in this moment, Or this, point in my life in my wife's arms.
38:10
Bill Erfurth: Gotcha.
38:11
So I'm going to further this along.
38:14
I've got two safe spaces.
38:16
It's interesting because after all the death, destruction and despair that you experience as a cop over
38:23
the years, the shadows that lurk behind, how evil lurks everywhere.
38:31
I don't go.
38:32
Pretty much anywhere without a gun.
38:35
I don't even feel safe in my own home.
38:39
Like
38:39
David Berez: I would agree with that.
38:40
I actually feel most vulnerable in my own home.
38:42
Bill Erfurth: Yeah, because who knows who might come to kill you that you put in prison or whatever it might be right.
38:49
Agreed.
38:50
My one safe space.
38:51
My number one safe space is the couch on my family's home where I grew up as a kid.
38:59
Before I knew the evils of the world.
39:02
And when I go back there, I can sit there and all of a sudden I feel
39:06
this leave my body and just feel a complete and total sense of peace.
39:15
I have that other sensation when I'm in the mountains, but otherwise
39:21
I'm always still on alert for the evil that lies around the corner.
39:28
David Berez: Yeah, that's 100 percent relatable to me.
39:32
so I think the question for me is actually better in reverse.
39:35
It's where do I not feel safe?
39:38
because I can feel pretty safe outside of the area where I worked outside of my home.
39:44
Like we have a second home up in Western Massachusetts in the mountains up there.
39:47
I don't think about cop shit at all.
39:50
I'm hiking, I'm kayaking, I'm skiing.
39:52
Like cop shit is just like completely the last thing on my mind.
39:57
because it's, I'm out with nature and just, I feel Untouchable,
40:04
but yeah, my home is actually here in, where I live in New Jersey is, I feel most vulnerable, when I drive
40:12
through the town that I work in, I worked in, which is about, 15, 20 minutes away from my home, for one
40:19
reason or another, I don't get back there much, but I have, an eye doctor that's there, I have, whatever,
40:26
I get this sense of unease.
40:30
I get that, the hypervigilance like goes through the roof again, and
40:35
I'm immediately back in the cop mode and, it doesn't feel good.
40:42
Bill Erfurth: And isn't that interesting?
40:43
Isn't that interesting though?
40:44
Because when you go back to where you work and you drive down a street.
40:50
And you look at every corner and you say, I remember the dead body there.
40:54
Yeah.
40:54
I remember the person that set themselves on fire there.
40:57
I remember where that person was, killed and decapitated.
41:03
You can go through blocks and blocks of neighborhoods where you worked and you remember some
41:09
traumatic thing that happened, some child, baby that died there.
41:14
And, it's just.
41:15
David Berez: But I will also add, Bill, I also can say.
41:19
I delivered a baby at that household.
41:21
You can't.
41:22
I, did CPR and save somebody's life at that household.
41:26
I remember how grateful this woman was when I showed up at her door.
41:29
And I tried to go back to those moments more and I, but it has to
41:35
be done with intention because our minds naturally spin to the negative.
41:41
Bill Erfurth: and there has been, and throughout your career, mostly things are negative.
41:45
Correct.
41:46
Nobody calls 9 1 1 to celebrate a birthday.
41:49
They call 9 1 1 because they just flushed their infant down the toilet.
41:53
Correct.
41:53
It's so full of death, destruction, and despair.
41:56
Yeah.
41:57
Those few little nuggets of saving somebody's life or
42:00
really making an influence on somebody changing their life is.
42:05
It's, a big, difference.
42:07
David Berez: Yeah, And so I do it with intention because I, otherwise I will drive myself nuts every time
42:14
I go through town and, I see both, but I try to remember the ones that are positive, especially at this
42:20
point, having been through the pen program, having been through the master resiliency trainer program.
42:28
I recognize what's healthy for me.
42:31
And I make a very conscious, deliberate effort to focus on the positives.
42:39
Bill Erfurth: So David, let's jump into your other incident, in the interest of time, and then we'll jump back to Craig.
42:46
I know he's got some other things.
42:48
David Berez: Yeah.
42:48
So the second, moment in time is a little less dramatic on my end, but,
42:55
so post
42:59
COVID.
43:00
So I retired January 1st of 2020.
43:03
And then, if you do the math on that, I missed COVID and I missed all the civil unrest.
43:07
Which, by the way, was very challenging for me.
43:09
When everybody's busting their ass and shoulder to shoulder in
43:12
these riots, and I'm sitting on my couch listening to the scanner.
43:15
Was not a good place for me to be.
43:17
I needed to be in that fight.
43:20
And I still had it in me.
43:21
I almost went back.
43:23
But my wife was like, you can go back, but we won't be here when you come home.
43:28
so it was a challenge and, I found some solace in being able to leave six packs on people's porches for
43:40
when they got home after, maybe a 36 hour shift during the riots and stuff.
43:45
So for some geography context for the listeners.
43:48
I live, one side, one town outside of Trenton where there was a
43:51
lot of, civil unrest related to the Chauvin Floyd case.
43:57
And, it was, I felt useless.
44:02
I felt a lack of purpose.
44:05
I felt disconnected in a way I'd never felt disconnected before.
44:09
And I found myself on this downward spiral.
44:16
Barbara Fredrickson, the, research psychologist, has this downward and
44:22
upward spiral that is associated with her broaden and build theory.
44:27
And, I felt myself in that downward spiral.
44:29
I didn't know how to catch myself and I didn't know how to send myself back up the other way.
44:35
And I just felt myself slipping and slipping back into this.
44:41
Deep, dark place that I recognized where I knew I'd been there before.
44:46
And, just before I think I was in at most risk for.
44:56
Being another statistic, sadly, my buddy, Danny, who's a detective sergeant at Trenton PD on July 29th had taken
45:03
his own life and, a very dramatic story, but it was what it was and at that point we had, I think, six or seven.
45:16
In New Jersey, in a very short period of time, Danny was a straw that broke my back, and I knew that, but not
45:26
for him, it probably would have been me in the coming days and weeks.
45:31
And, I needed to do something about it, and that was what my turning point was.
45:37
Danny was not only a good friend, he, our kids are friends, Danny was a Police Unity Tour guy,
45:46
It,
45:48
broke my heart, and it left a void in me that I, struggle, I still struggle to talk about till today.
45:56
Bill Erfurth: I know, craig's got a number of questions too.
46:01
it's crazy.
46:02
I, knew people when I was working that committed suicide, I never understood it.
46:07
There was one female that, was on my squad and she committed suicide.
46:12
I didn't know her she laid out her entire uniform from her hat all the way down to her shoes.
46:18
On her bed, like perfectly.
46:21
And I, we never talked about that stuff.
46:24
It was very taboo, police suicide was taboo.
46:29
We, you weren't supposed to deal with it and it still is.
46:32
And it's going to be interesting, to get into why and some of the statistics and how do we go about preventing that.
46:41
Craig, I'm going to throw it over to you.
46:44
Craig Floyd: I think it's a good segue.
46:46
we've talked about all the struggles that David has faced,
46:49
that you faced, Bill, that every officer has to deal with.
46:54
and I want to leave this interview on, a more positive note, because as David said, he was down in a
47:00
very dark place and then somehow he pulled himself out of it.
47:05
And today he is a leading expert on officer resiliency.
47:10
the pillars.
47:11
That you talk about, David, and we've talked about this many times,
47:16
the pillars of resiliency, mental, physical, social, and spiritual.
47:23
And what I'd like you to do to maybe, as we conclude this interview, Talk to the officers that are viewing this podcast
47:31
and tell them what they can do to help themselves better cope with the Amazing stresses of a police officer's job.
47:42
David Berez: that's hard to do in a short segment Especially
47:45
when I teach hours upon hours of classes on that Simple question.
47:51
but so let me go back to the PERMA theory P E R M A. I think is a great place to start.
47:57
PERMA theory was developed by Dr. Marty Seligman at the university of Pennsylvania.
48:03
he is still the director of the MAP program, my graduate school
48:08
program, and my personal mentor, which I am incredibly grateful for.
48:14
so perma, the P in perma, speaks to positive emotions.
48:19
the E speaks to engagement, the R speaks to relationships, the M speaks to meaning or mattering,
48:27
depending on how you look at it, and the A speaks to accomplishment.
48:32
And those are the five things that are needed, according to Dr.
48:37
Seligman, to live a meaningful, purposeful life towards ultimate.
48:45
being which Aristotle termed eudaimonia.
48:50
And so when we're looking at well being, there's actually two pieces.
48:54
There's hedonic being and there's eudaimonic well being.
48:58
And hedonic being is the immediate gratification of something.
49:02
That quick dopamine hit, whether it's scrolling through your phone and getting all the likes you can
49:08
on Instagram, which, by the way, is a colossal waste of time and does nothing for you other than feed that.
49:16
control center in your brain, which is equivalent to getting high on an illicit substance.
49:23
Or eudaimonic well being, which is more of the long term, long
49:28
goal view of doing things that just better your life over time.
49:34
And whether that be habit forming, whether that be expression of gratitude, committing random acts of
49:41
kindness, Just maintaining a gratitude journal, something so simple, the three blessings exercise, all of these
49:50
are evidence based research informed techniques that you can, do for yourself
49:57
that as long as you keep up with them, we'll elevate your wellbeing.
50:02
We'll take you from that zero to positive 10, that thriving mode.
50:06
And they're simple, they're free.
50:08
They don't cost you anything other than your intention to do better.
50:13
And.
50:15
On the surface of it, without having the in depth conversation, people are like, Oh, it's cheesy, bro.
50:21
what are you talking about?
50:22
That's rainbows and unicorn shit.
50:24
but the truth is it's, the science is there.
50:28
it's in the numbers and the statistics are indisputable that if you take five or 10 minutes of your day,
50:35
either when you go to sleep at night or when you wake up in the morning and write in a gratitude journal,
50:40
three things you're grateful for over the period of 30 days, you're.
50:46
Elevated wellbeing is completely documented for another six months or up to another six months.
50:53
It just makes you feel good because there's a principle, that
50:58
looks at the things you focus on are the things that you see.
51:03
And so if you are exposed to all this crap all the time, that's what you're going to see.
51:10
And that's what you're going to feel.
51:12
And that's what you're going to.
51:13
Be reacting to now, if you can take a few minutes of your day and write down these things that you're
51:19
grateful for over time, those are the things you're going to see.
51:24
And I'm not talking about, Oh, I'm grateful for my family.
51:27
I'm grateful for my church.
51:28
Like those, we call that vanilla be specific in what you're grateful for
51:33
because your body, your mind will start to see with purpose, with intention.
51:39
Those greater things in your life, and you're more likely subconsciously to hold the door for somebody when
51:45
you're walking into a store, you're more likely to put your cart back in the cart line instead of just leaving
51:52
it in the parking lot, just random acts of kindness will automatically develop over time because you're
51:59
grateful for the little things in life in the big things to, so that's what
52:03
I would suggest to officers, upfront, simple, small tasks, free of charge.
52:10
They don't cost you anything but your consciousness to do the little things that make you happy
52:17
and not, I'm not talking about scrolling through your phone.
52:20
I'm not talking about an extra red bull.
52:23
Those are hedonic responses.
52:24
Those are immediate gratifications.
52:27
They over time is what your brain will look for.
52:30
Those dopamine hits that.
52:33
It's not going to get you to a greater well being, it'll actually destroy your well being over time if
52:38
you don't mix it with the eudaimonic responses of greater long term look, one thing I want to say, but
52:46
Bill Erfurth: one thing that I want to say, before Craig jumps back in is, it has evolved a little
52:54
bit from being super taboo from when I started on the job, right?
52:59
I'm a dinosaur now, But, back then, it was very taboo.
53:05
Today, and even when I was on our department, we had a bureau.
53:08
It was called Psych Services Bureau.
53:11
And we had full time psychologist doctors on staff.
53:15
And I know tons of people went and talked to them and went to see them.
53:19
And I do believe that's becoming a thing.
53:22
More prevalent throughout law enforcement, especially bigger agencies
53:26
that can have that kind of budget and staff and bring those people on.
53:30
And I think overall in society, people are more open to going and speaking to somebody where before, and especially in
53:40
the law enforcement circles, everybody, it's all, it's, all about that machismo.
53:45
I'm a tough guy kind of thing.
53:46
I can put up with it.
53:47
I can see anything.
53:50
Tolerate anything, everybody has their, tipping points.
53:54
So to be able to now go and feel more comfortable seeing and talking to somebody that's, truly evolved.
54:03
And, I think Craig had, had alluded to that before, and we had talked about that on our own before as well.
54:11
David Berez: There's some great, great programs out there.
54:13
New Jersey was the first state in the country to enact, a statewide
54:18
resiliency program, which is currently in a, new evolution.
54:22
we'll see where that shakes out.
54:25
Louisville, Kentucky has an entire wellness center, that, that was.
54:30
It came out of a consent degree, which is also another conversation, but, that was a good part of the
54:37
consent decree was that this wellness center were developed out of it.
54:41
and, LA County Sheriff's Department has some amazing trainings going on in this space.
54:47
there's some great agencies doing some great work.
54:52
Addison, Illinois does a lot of the resiliency training and it is catching on.
55:00
but getting rid of the stigma has certainly been a challenge.
55:04
And it's about just having honest conversation.
55:09
and it's not about telling, it's not about storytelling.
55:11
It's not about war stories.
55:12
It's not about, having people come in and just say, yeah, I, can relate because I did this, I think that's crap.
55:20
You have to have people come in that.
55:22
Not that can not only relate, but that can give you tools to walk away with.
55:26
What's the takeaway from this conversation we're having?
55:28
How can I do better as a result of our conversation?
55:33
And, I think it has to be a conversation, putting somebody up on a podium with, a PowerPoint deck, useless.
55:41
Absolutely useless.
55:43
You have to have somebody come into the room, be part of the, crowd, walk through the aisles, have conversations
55:50
with people that creates that the breakdown for vulnerability to happen.
55:56
So standing up on a podium with PowerPoint slides, it is a waste of everybody's time and money.
56:01
But if you can create those conversations in the classroom.
56:06
Dennis Collins: David, in the interest of time, I'm sure we could spend hours with you.
56:10
this has been fascinating to hear your personal story.
56:15
In the interest of time, I'll ask you a question.
56:17
Would you be willing to come back and go deeper into this at some point?
56:21
100%. Great.
56:23
Because I liked what you were just saying about the different programs that are springing up.
56:28
And, I. I am very interested because I, as you, am a student of this, and I am of the belief that as the
56:38
leadership goes, so goes the rest of the team and if law enforcement
56:44
leadership doesn't get on this train, it's leaving the station.
56:48
Okay.
56:48
And it's not going to get any better and it's a big pet peeve
56:51
with me and I have some personal stories to tell as well, but I want.
56:55
To hear more of your stories, if you would be kind enough to come back.
56:59
David Berez: And that's what we did in New Jersey.
57:00
We hit up the state chiefs of police association.
57:02
We did two, chief peer classes so far, maybe three at this point.
57:07
and they're like, wow, this stuff's awesome.
57:08
And then that has, flowed downhill.
57:12
I know Craig's got a question and he's been jumping out of his shirt for the last three minutes.
57:16
Dennis Collins: Okay.
57:16
He doesn't want to respect our timeline.
57:19
Craig Floyd: No, I'm not.
57:19
I'm just fascinated.
57:21
Maybe it's my posture that you're thinking of, but let me close by saying this.
57:26
That when I was CEO of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, we had a program called Destination Zero.
57:33
And, it involved, the safety and the wellness of officers, right?
57:39
And a big focus of that program was on mental health, all right?
57:44
And what we did was we spotlighted those programs that were in place around the country at different
57:50
departments to provide better mental health support for their officers.
57:56
and I'm so proud of the fact that we were the, the, leaders, if you
58:02
will, in, in that particular effort to try to focus on this issue.
58:07
And now, David, thanks to you being a part of the CBB leadership team, we are continuing to focus
58:16
on this very important issue of mental health for officers.
58:19
Officer well being and how can we prevent police suicide?
58:24
so when we talk about gratitude, I am very grateful that you're a part of the CBB team I'm, very grateful that
58:30
we got to know each other more than a dozen years ago through the police unity
58:34
tour And I can't thank you enough for sharing your story, in a resilient life.
58:40
What a book.
58:41
I encourage everybody to go out and read it, especially our law enforcement professionals and the public.
58:47
They need to understand what our officers are dealing with on a day to day basis.
58:53
and I'm just very grateful that you shared that story and that you're
58:56
now helping others thanks to your own personal experience and struggles.
59:01
Thank you, sir. You are truly a hero behind the badge.
59:07
David Berez: Thank you, Craig.
59:09
Dennis Collins: Again, if you want more about this incredible topic, here's
59:14
David's book, A Resilient Life, A Cop's Journey and Pursuit of Purpose.
59:19
if you liked what you heard today, you need to get online right now and buy this book because it goes deeper.
59:29
And tells more of David's story.
59:32
David, your, story, what can I say?
59:36
your superpower is your vulnerability.
59:38
Your superpower is your transparency.
59:41
And that's something that's sometimes missing in law enforcement.
59:45
We don't always get that, but your story is not only inspiring.
59:50
Not just to law enforcement, but to people, to human beings.
59:54
And more important,
59:57
it's instructive, because you have the knowledge, you have the experience, and you've blended the experiences you've
1:00:05
had with the knowledge you've gained as a trained certified facilitator and a master degree, facilitator in
1:00:13
two very important topics that law enforcement needs to pay attention to.
1:00:18
So again, thank you for sharing at such a deep level.
1:00:22
certainly, probably not the most pleasant experience all the time to go back there.
1:00:27
How many people have we helped today because of having this conversation?
1:00:33
That's what I think of.
1:00:34
yeah.
1:00:36
And you are one of the best I've ever heard.
1:00:39
I'm, jealous because I wish I had studied with Marty Seligman.
1:00:44
He is one of my total all time heroes.
1:00:47
David Berez: He's a good man.
1:00:48
And, as soon as we, publish this, I'm a hundred percent sure I will be sending it to him and, he will see
1:00:56
what we've been talking about and how we're using positive psychology in the law enforcement fields.
1:01:00
I would add though that, I'm the only police officer to have ever gone through that program, at 10.
1:01:06
And there's been an FBI agent and, a psychologist with a, one of the alphabet agencies.
1:01:13
And, but I'm the only, and sorry, and the chief of police in Mumbai, India.
1:01:19
but I'm the only street cop from the U S it's ever been through that program.
1:01:22
Dennis Collins: Good for you.
1:01:23
And ma and I think you would probably say this to many more, please do this.
1:01:28
We need an army.
1:01:30
We don't need just one brave, vulnerable person like you doing this.
1:01:34
We need more.
1:01:36
And hopefully we got that message across today.
1:01:41
And tell Marty, I said, hi,
1:01:42
David Berez: I said, I'm going to call him right after we're done.
1:01:47
Dennis Collins: Absolutely.
1:01:48
Folks, we're going to have to end this wonderful episode of Heroes Behind the Badge.
1:01:55
We thank you for tuning in.
1:01:57
Once again, our guest was David Berez.
1:02:00
again, I can only recommend one more time.
1:02:03
The result, a resilient life, a cop's journey in pursuit of purpose.
1:02:07
This will tell you all you need to know about David and his personal story.
1:02:12
So until next time, if you would like more information about
1:02:17
citizens behind the badge, that's who brings you these podcasts.
1:02:21
If you'd like to know more.
1:02:23
You can find us at Citizens Behind the badge.org.
1:02:27
That's Citizens Behind the badge.org.
1:02:30
Please join us in the hundreds of thousands of people who have
1:02:34
already stepped up to support the men and women of law enforcement.
1:02:40
Until next episode, thanks for tuning in.
1:02:43
We'll see you next time at Heroes Behind the Badge.