STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- An off-duty NYPD detective committed suicide Monday in a Queens home, according to the New York Post.
The detective, Paul Federico, 53, was found in his mother’s 79th Street home at around 12:25 p.m., the Post said, citing unnamed law enforcement sources.
Federico worked in the NYPD’s liaison unit, the Post reported.
Federico is the first active-duty suicide the department has faced this year after a tumultuous 2019 in which multiple suicides shook the department. A retired 78-year-old NYPD officer shot himself inside of his Graniteville home Jan. 2, the Advance previously reported.
The NYPD was considered to be in a “mental health crisis” after 29-year-old Michael Caddy killed himself in a car behind the 121st Precinct stationhouse in Graniteville in June, former Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill said in a written statement.
Caddy was the first of three active or former NYPD officers to commit suicide on Staten Island in 2019 -- a year when the NYPD’s internal policies regarding officers suffering from mental illness were called into question.
The National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255; additionally, the NYPD lists multiple mental health resources for its employees.