SAN ANTONIO — The San Antonio Police Department has a new unit to address mental health for its officers.
The Wellness Unit is only about a year old. It was created after SAPD saw a spike in suicides within both active and retired officers.
From February 2021 to October 2022, SAPD reported six active officers and two retired officers took their own lives. Prior to 2021, the last time an office took their own life was in 2016.
For years, the department has had several resources in place to address mental health but the goal with this unit is to combine those resources and be more proactive.
Sergeant Tina Baron leads the unit. She has been with SAPD for more than 24 years.
“Our job is responding to people’s worse day,” Baron said.
Baron said most of the time an officer does not realize the impact a call can have on their mental health until they are off the clock.
“It’s hard to do that on your day to day and then go home and have that normal life,” Baron said.
She said the unit consists of seven wellness officers whose jobs are to reach out to officers involved in critical incidents or traumatic calls.
Gabriel Mendoza is one of those officers. He said the toughest calls are the ones involving children.
“We talk about those innocent people in society and whose more vulnerable whose more innocent that a child,” Mendoza said.
But critical incidents also include officer involved shootings.
“It’s been pretty tough,” Mendoza said. “We’ve had a lot of officer involved shootings and it’s not part of our norm.”
In 2023, KENS 5 reported on 27 officer involved shootings. So far this year, there have been 7.
“It definitely messes with the psychological side of policing because you’re now a little bit more on edge,” Mendoza said.
But Mendoza and Baron believe it is important to normalize talking about those bad days. They believe it is impacting the department for the better.
“I know this unit is saving lives,” Baron said.
The unit also helps train and recruit peer support officers who volunteer their time on top of other duties to help fellow officers. They have increased the number of peer support officers from 24 to more than 70.