Law Enforcement Investigation of Suicides (graphic/crude language warning)

[COP2CON]

So, if you CTB'd outside of your home, the cops wouldn't necessarily search it unless they had reason to suspect it was a murder (beyond treating all deaths as murders until proven otherwise) and relevant information could be found in your house?

Sometimes if things at the scene don't add up or there are still questions, maybe a warrant would be drawn up. A lot of times we would just do a walk through with family's consent just to be sure but we might not do a detailed search if the incident location was elsewhere. Like I've said before, I have no perfect answer because there are a million different factors that can influence how or why something is done or not done.

For example, you ctb in a local park, doesn't matter how. During the course of the investigation maybe no phone or personal property is found, that's actually considered suspicious because there's random stuff most people have with them. Or maybe nothing is awry at the scene but a family member says they found a note in your home, well now your home becomes part of the investigation. Now that doesn't mean full search and all but you can see how something slight might warrant follow up in that kind of way. Also I had a few where the family wanted us to search. Kind of a mix of wanting to be helpful but also they wanted us to find something that proved it wasn't a suicide.

Interesting, although I doubt that procedures in my country are the same.
About the "for every suicide there was at least one person who was devastated" thing: That doesn't necessarily mean every potential suicide has a person to turn to. For example I am sure my mother would be devastated, if she was notified about my suicide, although we haven't been in touch for more than 6 years. But that doesn't mean that she was a person I could ask for help or get encouragement from. When I still kept in touch she would always critisize my decisions or ridicule me, so I decided I would rather not have her in my life. I think patterns like this often exist, especially with family members that are either not empathetic enough to offer support or are downright abusive.

You are 100% correct. I put that in because to be frank, I'm a fan of complete honesty when it comes to suicide. I've seen posts where people say no one would care if they did it and so on and well I know statistically there are some without anyone to care, all the ones I dealt with did have someone it ruined. When its my time, it will devastate 1, make 2 sad, and literally many others will jump for joy. While I don't want to hurt the 1, I'm not going to have the delusion I have no one to hurt.

Also years ago, I told my former wife I was struggling and wanted to commit suicide because I couldn't take it all anymore. She said nothing, did nothing to help, and told no one. I had struggled so long and finally worked up the courage to tell the one person I knew would help me only to watch them literally ignore it all. I found out later she was waiting for me to die. So you are 100% correct in what you said. I just want people to realize there is usually someone who will be devastated in case that matters.

 

[victim4]

Thank you for the excellent post. Would it be alright if I sent you a few questions via DM?

 

[extrafun]

Hi COP2CON and thank you for sharing all this. I'm a mental health professional who is also intermittently suicidal. This thread has really opened my eyes for my own situation and my clients' situations. There's a saying "knowledge is power"... for me, knowledge is comfort. I've got a couple questions as well:

1. Have you heard of anyone getting implicated for possessing illegal materials as the result of a friend/contact CTBing? For example, someone CTBs and one of their most recent contacts is their friend who is their dealer. Will law enforcement go after the dealer? What about if they were exchanging child sexual abuse material?
2. Do you know anything about how law enforcement tracks online activity, like keywords related to suicide? Do they ever do wellness checks based purely on online activity which was not reported by a third party?

 

[COP2CON]

Thank you for the excellent post. Would it be alright if I sent you a few questions via DM?

I see your post count is low but if DM's work for you by all means I'm available to answer questions if I can.

Hi COP2CON and thank you for sharing all this. I'm a mental health professional who is also intermittently suicidal. This thread has really opened my eyes for my own situation and my clients' situations. There's a saying "knowledge is power"... for me, knowledge is comfort. I've got a couple questions as well:

1. Have you heard of anyone getting implicated for possessing illegal materials as the result of a friend/contact CTBing? For example, someone CTBs and one of their most recent contacts is their friend who is their dealer. Will law enforcement go after the dealer? What about if they were exchanging child sexual abuse material?
2. Do you know anything about how law enforcement tracks online activity, like keywords related to suicide? Do they ever do wellness checks based purely on online activity which was not reported by a third party?

You are absolutely welcome and I'm sorry for your struggles. I know first hand what its like to have these feelings but be in a position where your not allowed to feel that way.

1. So I think it might vary by state but we did go after dealers who supplied OD drugs. Honestly it wasn't a big deal when I first started and IF we identified where someone got say heroin and OD'd we might go chat with the dealer, let them know the were on our radar, and leave it at that. Then fentanyl happened and dear God...... So many dead kids (teenagers and young adults) because they would buy what the thought was Zanny but really was fent. We got an FBI and DEA alert and the next week like 10 bodies. It became a regular thing so dealers started being brought down because most of the people dying had no idea they were sold fent.

Now if CSM is located anywhere, then yes the investigation will still be about the suicide but a second investigation will be started on the CSM. Usually local LE will use special task forces or State agencies to figure out if all the persons involved are contained in the state and if so, the will work to secure arrests of all other parties that had involvement. If it involves persons outside the state, the Feds step in. Also note, for CSM crimes, you can actually be charged by both the state and the Feds for it. I met someone in county while I was being housed somewhere else briefly and was in Max, who initially got charged for having underage pictures on his phone and soliciting a minor from our state. Initially the state had him arrested where he lived, extradited him here, ended up dropping the case and letting the Feds have it instead, and now he's serving 30 years in Club Fed whereas if the case was made here, he might have only done 5. Also any electronics with CSM found on them will not be returned no matter how bad a family me member wants them.

More information than what was requested but I'm feeling bad and rambly tonight.

2. In the US, LE doesn't track stuff like that. Suicide isn't a crime so no vast resources go into from LE Agencies for anything like that. I did a literal shit ton of wellness checks and took many to the hospital/mental hospitals and every single one was someone called 911 to report it to us. Like 90% of the time, it was the actual person calling to say they wanted to kill themselves. Most wanted to go, the ones that didn't were always the involuntary commitments we would have to go pick up. If you are involuntarily committed by a doctor or a judge, the piece of paper is the same as a warrant and you are to be taken into custody immediately. But no, that stuff isn't tracked. Also wellness checks are super easy and its usually the person being checked that makes it difficult.
"Hi I'm Deputy COP2CON and we received a call you might want to hurt yourself."
"No? Well that's good to hear but if your feeling bad here are some local and national resources as well as you can always call us and we can take you to people better equipped to help you."
"Im going to write up a quick report later that goes nowhere or does anything other than say what the initial call was, that we identified and spoke to you, and that you appear fine to me. It will be available in 3-5 business days if you'd like a copy for yourself."
"You have a nice night."

That was the perfect way but like 99% of the time the person immediately said something that meant your night was shot because you had to take them to the hospital.

Hope I actually answered what you asked.....got a bit tangenty there.

 

[extrafun]

Hope I actually answered what you asked.....got a bit tangenty there.

You sure did. Thanks. Speaking just for me, tangents are welcome. That was all useful and interesting info.

 

[buriedinmyhead]

Thank you for posting this, it's given me some stuff to think about. If you don't mind my asking, how long does it usually take for family to be allowed to see the body after the investigation? Are there circumstances where they won't be allowed to see it (such as a particularly messy death)?

As for cops collecting data, are they able to collect data from sites you only accessed via private browser and left no login information for? I assume they'd be able to, but I'm just curious. I only access this site via private browsers so that if someone borrowed my device, they wouldn't see this site.

 

[COP2CON]

You sure did. Thanks. Speaking just for me, tangents are welcome. That was all useful and interesting info.

Oh don't tempt me with a good time, I can tangent the hell out of any conversation. Seriously though, glad it helped.

Thank you for posting this, it's given me some stuff to think about. If you don't mind my asking, how long does it usually take for family to be allowed to see the body after the investigation? Are there circumstances where they won't be allowed to see it (such as a particularly messy death)?

As for cops collecting data, are they able to collect data from sites you only accessed via private browser and left no login information for? I assume they'd be able to, but I'm just curious. I only access this site via private browsers so that if someone borrowed my device, they wouldn't see this site.

Howdy, appreciate the thanks.

Hmmmmm I'm sure it varies by state or whomever has control over the body but everywhere I worked it could be right away or maybe after then autopsy a couple days later, depended on the circumstance. Might let a loved one look (but not touch) right before we loaded it into the transport SUV or Coroner's pick up bed. Some places that have a real "as seen on TV" morgue might let someone look while the bodies there I guess. Most of the time the family doesn't see it until after the funeral home comes and picks it up. If its messy, then 100% the family will not be allowed to see it until its cleaned up. Sometimes in a particularly bad one like a fire, the family will never see it. Most want to but everyone will eventually talk them out of it. I do not think there is a law anywhere though that technically limits viewing a body, but I could be wrong. Wasn't one where I was so whatevs.

I mean, honestly we never collected anything other than what was left on the phone or computer. There was no fancy CSI stuff trying to crack into websites and stuff. About the most we or most would do would be maybe contact Meta for access to like Facebook but honestly there was no reason unless the evidence pointed in a way that we needed to. We also would look if someone was auto logged in but more because it was there than anything. Plus it depends what gets downloaded during the dump. Not all phones or devices work perfect all the time when you hook them up. For example, a phone connected to my case wouldn't dump any info at all even though it was older. Most of the time LE is not going to care about sites like this. By then, usually its like 99% confirmed a suicide is a suicide so its just a cursory look to say they did in the report. If they find or suspect something then yeah is more in depth but most of the time its nothing special unless like CSM is found or something. I only saw a couple of phone dump files because its boring and I didn't feel like staying for hours looking at someone's porn history. I can't for sure say your covered by using a private browser but I can say like 99% of the people who might look through your phone in that event, would not care.