The police department lost one of its own last night in Sarteneja after 27-year-old PC Irvin Chan took his own life. According to reports, he left the substation, where he lives with his wife, to go to a store. When he returned, he was apparently intoxicated, which led his common-law wife to lock the door. Not long after, she heard a gunshot, and when she opened the door, she found him lying on the ground bleeding from the head. He was pronounced dead hours later.
The ComPol lamented the loss and emphasized the need for mandatory counseling sessions, especially when it comes to curbing alcoholism in the department.
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"It's a tragic incident for us. We are still grieving the loss of Mr Ramirez and now we have another one. Our Human Resources are our greatest resource and when we see our Human Resources being depleted in such a way, it's heart wrenching for us. Nonetheless PC Chan was gan outstanding officer, a very quiet individual, we're still trying to discern what led him to commit suicide so at this time I don't have much in terms of details but I would like to extend my sincerest condolences to his family, he had almost four years with us and as I said he was an outstanding police."
"I'm not going to say that he had an alcohol problem, many people drink, that does not mean they have an alcohol issue, it is how much you drink. There are several information coming out but I don't want to assume anything, I want to wait until the investigation is done and then make a final determination from there."
"We did get a report from our psychologist that there were a number of officers who were being watched. He continue to work with these officers to see what can be done and just as part of our discussion earlier with he psychologist, we have determined that we are going to order mandatory counseling as well as mandatory alcohol rehabilitation for some officers because there are a number of officers who are alcoholics and I think that if we just leave it for them to volunteer rehabilitation, it is not going to happen and it is going to continue to plague us so we will look at it from a legal standpoint, the police act does give the commissioner the power to order mandatory counseling or rehabilitation for police officers so we're going to exercise the provisions in the police act to make sure we do what we can to help those police officers who are suffering from whatever they may be going through psychologically."
Reporter:
"Can you give like a percentage of how many of these officers would need the mandatory treatment or attention?"
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"I think the last report we got from the psychologist was somewhere around 20. There may be more, there is more evaluation to be done and so he has been tasked to go around the country and meet with officers, the commanding officers have also been told to keep a closer eyes on their followers to see if there is any unusual behavior on their part."
