Chicago police have one of the worst professions in the nation. They have to deal with gang-bangers, homicides left unsolved due to tight-lipped witnesses, and a new consent decree which ties their hands. Now they’re facing suicides in their ranks.

On Sunday morning, an off-duty police detective committed suicide at his home by carbon monoxide poisoning. That’s bad enough, but he was the fourth member of the CPD to take his life in less than four months.

Let that sink in.

Three other officers shot themselves between July and September.

Four police suicides in a single city within four months is shocking enough, but did you hear about it in national media? I didn’t. The only reason I knew of the most recent suicide is because I subscribe to a Chicago online newspaper.

It goes against the media’s narrative, you see, considering that Barack Obama’s BFF Rahm Emmanuel is the mayor. Plus Obama’s Presidential Library is currently being built on the South Side, and will open in 2021. Suicide among police don’t look too good for the narrative, does it?

However, the CPD have been grappling with the issue for a while now — so much that a former officer and counselor wrote a book about it. He says that suicide is the “elephant in the room” which no one wants to talk about.

But when you look at what the Chicago police deal with on a regular basis, it’s understandable why some of them may go over that brink.

Credit: TheeErin; flickr.com.

Consider, for example, the shooting spree which happened last weekend. On Sunday, 26 people were shot in an 18-hour period — and that was just Sunday. The entire weekend saw 42 people shot, five of them fatally. One was a 16-year-old boy.

Then consider that this was the second worst weekend of the year. The grand champion of shoot-a-rama weekends happened in August, when 74 people were shot, 12 of them fatally. But the year isn’t over, either.

And now police also have to do funeral duty, and no, it’s not escorting hearses to the cemetery. They’ll be part of a ‘Funeral and Cemetery Violence Task Force.’

I’m not kidding.

Two weeks ago, while friends and family were saying their final goodbyes to rapper Vantrease Criss, aka “Dooski Da Man” (I’m not kidding about that, either), gangs shot six people exiting the church. The church!

A CPD task force now has to patrol churches, funeral homes, and cemeteries, lest some gang-bangers disrupt the funeral for a rival gang member. It’s been happening more frequently, but the shooting at “Dooski’s” service was the final straw.

Then there was the 2014 Laquan McDonald incident, in which Officer Jason Van Dyke shot 17-year-old McDonald 16 times. A jury recently convicted Van Dyke of second degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery, and Van Dyke is to learn his sentence this week. Chicago dodged riots with the verdict, but if the sentence is less than what some in the community think he deserves, what will happen then?

Finally, there’s the proposed ‘consent decree’ facing Chicago police — which Attorney General Jeff Sessions worries will hamstring police in doing their jobs. Mayor Rahm Emmanuel told Sessions to sit down and shut up:

“Today Jeff Sessions praised Bill Bratton’s NYPD leadership, then attacked Chicago. Before the AG runs his mouth he should get educated on what he’s talking about. Bratton is America’s top police expert and yesterday he praised Chicago’s crime reductions over the past 2 years.”

Is it any wonder that some Chicago police officers are going over the edge? They face rampant lawbreaking for which they get little support from residents. Their city officials don’t support them. One of their brothers in blue was recently convicted of a major crime. And large swaths of the city hate their guts.

Even if you don’t live in Chicago, or have any sort of connection with the Windy City, you might still say a prayer or two for the beleaguered Chicago police. Suicides may also be coming to a police department near you.

Featured pic cropped from TheeErin, flickr.com.