In a heartfelt new column for The New York Times, actor and activist Ashley Judd is calling for revisions to law enforcement and court practices that “wreak havoc on mourning families” coping with the deaths by suicide of loved ones
that she “felt cornered and powerless as law enforcement officers began questioning me while the last of my mother’s life was fading.”
While Judd acknowledges “the need for law enforcement to investigate a sudden violent death by suicide,” she concludes that “there is absolutely no compelling public interest in the case of my mother to justify releasing the videos, images and family interviews that were done in the course of that investigation.” She calls on leaders in Washington and state capitals to “provide some basic protections for those involved in the police response to mental health emergencies.
Survivors of those lost to suicide “are often revictimized by laws that can expose their most private moments to the public,” Judd writes. “In the immediate aftermath of a life-altering tragedy, when we are in a state of acute shock, trauma, panic and distress, the authorities show up to talk to us. Because many of us are socially conditioned to cooperate with law enforcement, we are utterly unguarded in what we say.
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