CHICAGO – The Chicago Police Department has recorded suicide rates 60 percent higher than the national average.

Last year was the deadliest year in Chicago in 19 years with 762 murders, according to data from the Chicago Police Department.

But residents aren’t the only victims of the violence. According to an investigation by the Department of Justice, Chicago officers are committing suicide at an alarming rate.

“There were times where I truly thought I’d be better off dead than alive,” said Officer Brian Warner, who was diagnosed with PTSD after fatally shooting a man in 2011.

Warner tears up as he recounts the nights following the February 2011 incident that ended in the fatal shooting, reported circa.com.

In January, the Department of Justice released the findings from an investigation into the Chicago Police Department. Hidden between the findings of police brutality and excessive force was this:

“This would mean that CPD’s officer suicide rate is more than 60% higher than the national average.”

—Department of Justice investigation

Most police officers never actually fire their weapon. A 2000 study in New York City found that only 5 percent of officers had ever had to do so. For those that do, what follows can be traumatic.

The report found that according to the police union, Fraternal Order of Police in Chicago, there were 29.4 suicides per 100,000 from 2013 to 2015.

The national average for police officers (when you take all individual studies into account) is 18.1, according to Radford University researchers.

For the record, the Chicago Police Department reports that the rate is 22.7 suicides per 100,000 department members.

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