He did not want to die.
He did not have to die.
But, like so many officers over the years, he died by suicide.
Howard “Howie” Liebengood was a 51-year-old, 15-year veteran of the United States Capitol Police. On January 6, 2021, he was on duty protecting the U.S. Capitol. In the days that followed, he worked nearly around the clock, with little sleep between shifts and no opportunity to decompress. Three days later, on January 9, he died by suicide.
When Howie began his career in law enforcement, the job was demanding—but it was also predictable. Over time, that predictability eroded. Chronic staffing shortages led to mandatory overtime. Securing time off became increasingly difficult. Public scrutiny intensified. Protests grew more frequent and more volatile. Anti-police sentiment hardened.
Any one of these stressors might have been manageable. Together, layered over years, they became corrosive.
The toll accumulated slowly. There was no single breaking point—only a gradual narrowing of margin. Like so many officers, Howie carried it quietly.
When COVID-19 struck in 2020, that weight grew heavier. Schedules changed abruptly. Units were reorganized. Howie no longer worked alongside the partner who had inspired him to stay in the job. Isolation increased. Fear and uncertainty became part of daily life—for him and for me, as a fellow first responder. Still, we believed we were managing.
Howie focused on self-care. He exercised regularly. We attended virtual church services. We optimized our sleep hygiene. Our marriage was strong. We were financially secure. We were approaching our 10th wedding anniversary and looking forward to “things opening back up.” All the protective factors were there—or so I believed.
In early January 2021, Howie returned to work after a holiday vacation. He seemed refreshed. On his first day back, we joked about memes and celebrities. Life felt lighter. We believed the worst was behind us.
When he left for work on January 6, I told him, “Don’t run toward danger. Come back home to your wife.” He chuckled and I laughed—because we both knew that wasn’t who he was. Howie always put service before self.
After the events of that day, he arrived home in the early morning hours of January 7, shaken and exhausted—but home. I felt relief. I thought he was okay.
In the days that followed, he again worked nearly around the clock, with minimal sleep in between shifts. He was physically and emotionally depleted, with no time to process what he had just experienced. Amid the rapid escalation of operations, he received his revised work schedule: daily shifts, with no clear endpoint. When he shared it with me, he said simply, “There is no end in sight.”
We believed the stress was temporary. We believed we would get through it.
The evening after his fourth consecutive extended shift, Howie came home exhausted. Just days earlier, his warmth and humor had been intact; now, he barely touched his dinner. His blue eyes seemed distant. I knew he was overwhelmed. He went upstairs to rest.
Several hours later, Howie died by suicide using his service weapon.
My world changed forever.
Shock.
Disbelief.
A grief so heavy it felt unreal.
Even then, I struggled to accept that he had died by suicide.
Reflection
Only later did my understanding—slowly—begin to change.
As the days, weeks, and months passed, I came to see that law enforcement suicide is not an isolated tragedy, but part of a much larger and more complex pattern—one that extends far beyond individual officers.
I began to think differently about the words Howie had used: “No end in sight.” At the time, they sounded like exhaustion. In retrospect, they reflected something deeper. For many officers, suicide does not arise from despair alone. It arises from perceived entrapment—from the belief that there is no relief, no pause, and no acceptable exit that does not require abandoning one’s identity, career, or sense of duty.
Over the years, Howie would occasionally reference the deaths of fellow officers. When I asked how they died, the answer was often the same: suicide. These losses were disturbingly common—and quietly absorbed into the background of the profession. Law enforcement suicide had become normalized.
Earlier in his career, Howie sought help for work-related stress and was told simply to leave the job. There was no acknowledgment of the occupational hazards of policing, no recognition of cumulative trauma, and no system designed to support someone who wanted to continue serving while staying alive. The implicit message was clear: If the work was harming you, the solution was to walk away—not to fix the conditions causing harm.
After his death, I learned what so many families learn too late: law enforcement officers are estimated to be 54 percent more likely to die by suicide than the general working population.1 They experience higher rates of depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, sleep disorders, and burnout. And yet, comprehensive wellness services and formal suicide prevention programs remain the exception rather than the norm.
“ For many officers, suicide does not arise from despair alone. It arises from perceived entrapment—from the belief that there is no relief, no pause, and no acceptable exit that does not require abandoning one’s identity, career, or sense of duty. ”
There is a substantial body of research on law enforcement health and wellness. The evidence exists. The challenge is not the absence of knowledge, but how consistently that knowledge is translated into workplace practices, organizational culture, and health care delivery.
Howie embodied positive thinking and resilience. He was deeply connected to why he loved policing. Yet those qualities did not protect him. Self-care matters, but it cannot compensate for systemic strain. When work demands are relentless, when time off is unpredictable, and when exposure to trauma is cumulative and unprocessed, individual strategies reach their limits.
In law enforcement, wellness is frequently framed as a personal responsibility. Officers are encouraged to manage stress on their own—to exercise, meditate, download an app, or simply become more resilient. These efforts may help in the short term, but they do not change the conditions that produce distress in the first place.
I began to see how many opportunities for prevention had been missed—not because people did not care, but because responsibility had been misplaced. Too much had been asked of individual officers, and too little had been expected of the systems around them. Knowledge existed, but it was siloed. Care existed, but it was fragmented. And, too often, wellness was treated as a personal obligation rather than a shared one.
In retrospect, the potential to prevent deaths like Howie’s lies in a comprehensive approach to law enforcement health and wellness—one that spans both workplace conditions and the health care delivery system. The workplace represents a powerful opportunity for early intervention. Staffing models, scheduling practices, leadership expectations, and cultural norms shape outcomes.
Effective and sustainable change requires shared responsibility. Leadership and supervision matter—but so does labor and management working together. When these groups operate in isolation, opportunities for prevention are lost. When they collaborate, the workplace can become a source of protection rather than strain.
Officer wellness cannot be deferred, delegated, or outsourced. It must be embedded at every level—from leadership decisions to daily operations. When wellness is treated as ancillary, efforts remain fragmented. When it is understood as integral to readiness, safety, and performance, it becomes part of how the organization functions.
Equally important is educating mental and medical health care professionals outside of law enforcement. Officers often interact with clinicians long before a crisis emerges. However, many providers remain unaware of the elevated suicide risk among law enforcement officers. Without that awareness, warning signs may be missed during routine clinical encounters, and opportunities for early intervention may be lost.
Suicide is an irreversible workplace failure. When a profession carries a suicide risk 54 percent higher than the general working population, we are failing our officers.
Police suicide can be years in the making—unless we intervene early and provide sustained support from an officer’s first shift to their last, across the entire spectrum of care.
The Howard C. Liebengood Foundation
The Howard C. Liebengood Foundation (the Foundation) was named in honor of my late husband, but its mission is to support the individuals who are protecting and serving their communities now—and those who will serve in the future.
The Foundation is dedicated to improving law enforcement health and wellness through a comprehensive, systems-based approach grounded in interdisciplinary collaboration, education, and research. Its work focuses on strengthening workplace health, improving access to culturally competent health care, and reducing barriers to timely mental and medical care.2
Through initiatives such as the Law Enforcement Health Gap Analysis Program, the Foundation identifies gaps in services, resources, and research and helps agencies of all sizes improve access to care.
Officers are never truly off duty. They may remove their badge and gun, but they cannot leave their stress, anxiety, or trauma behind. Health crises do not follow shift schedules. Delays in care can deepen isolation, despair, and risk.
Rather than responding only after a crisis occurs, the Foundation seeks to identify risk earlier and support sustainable change across the full arc of an officer’s career and the entire continuum of care.
At its core, the Foundation is grounded in a simple belief: Officer wellness cannot be separated from the systems in which officers work and seek care. Policing does not occur in isolation, and neither does suicide risk.
The complexity of the problem demands interdisciplinary solutions. The Foundation brings together leaders in law enforcement, medicine, public health, organizational science, psychology, policy, and research—because no single discipline holds the solution.
The Foundation allows us to honor Howie’s life by confronting the systemic conditions that continue to place officers at risk and by committing to change that is proactive, collaborative, and sustained.
Law enforcement officers do not want to die.
They do not have to die.
My hope is that by acting earlier, together—and by treating officer wellness as a shared responsibility rather than an individual task—fewer families will have to learn this lesson the way mine did. d
Notes:
1John M. Violanti, Cynthia F. Robinson, and Rui Shen, “Law Enforcement Suicide: A National Analysis,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine 44, no. 5 (2013): 486–492.
2The Howard C. Liebengood Foundation, “Our Purpose.”Bottom of Form
Please cite as
Serena Liebengood, “He Did Not Want to Die,” Police Chief 93, no. 5 (May 2026): 40–43.
