Former RCMP Officer Who Spoke Out About Force's Culture Takes Her Own Life

VANCOUVER — Former RCMP officers who suffered sexual harassment and bullying on the job are grieving the suicide of an ex-Mountie who advocated for change within the force they say ruined so many lives.

Catherine Galliford, who was one of the first Mounties to speak out about her experiences at the hands of fellow officers, said she was devastated to learn that Krista Carle, with whom she graduated from Depot division in Regina, had taken her own life.

The General Who Went to War On Suicide

On the evening of July 19, 2010, Major General Dana Pittard, the new commander of Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, got a call from the base’s 24-hour duty officer. A SWAT team had been sent to the house of a young sergeant named Robert Nichols. Nichols was inside with a gun, threatening to kill himself.

Pittard arrived at the soldier’s home just in time to see the soldier step out of the house, put the gun to his chest and fire. Neighbors and police crowded the street, but Pittard was the only officer from the Army base at the scene. He went home, where his boxes were still packed from his move 10 days before, feeling disturbed and helpless.

Aboriginal Community In Canada Declares Suicide Crisis Emergency

TORONTO (Reuters) - A Canadian aboriginal community of 2,000 people declared a state of emergency on Saturday after 11 of its members tried taking their own lives this month and 28 tried to do so in March, according to a document provided by a local politician.

The declaration was signed by Chief Bruce Shisheesh of the remote northern community of the Attawapiskat First Nation in Ontario. It was provided to Reuters Sunday night by the member of parliament for the area, Charlie Angus, who said in an interview, “This is a systemic crisis affecting the communities.”

The Life and Death of an Amazon Warehouse Temp

On Jan. 18, 2013, as the sun went down, Jeff Lockhart Jr. got ready for work. He slipped a T-shirt over his burly frame and hung his white work badge over his broad chest. His wife, Di-Key, was in the bathroom fixing her hair in micro-braids and preparing for another evening alone with her three sons. Jeff had been putting in long hours lately, and so the couple planned a breakfast date at Shoney’s for when his shift ended around dawn. “You better have your hair done by then,” he teased her.

No, GMOs Didn't Create India's Farmer Suicide Problem, But…

Since the mid-1990s, around 300,000 Indian farmers have killed themselves—a rate of about one every 30 minutes, which is 47 percent higher than the national average. The tragedy has become entangled in the rhetorical war around genetically modified seeds.

Some anti-GMO activists, including Indian scientist and organic-farming champion Vandana Shiva, have blamed the high suicide rates directly on biotech seeds—specifically, cotton tweaked by Monsanto to contain the Bt pesticide, now used on more than 90 percent of India's cotton acreage. Shiva has gone so far as to declare them "seeds of suicide," because, she claims, "suicides increased after Bt cotton was introduced."

Suicide on the Great Sioux Nation

Suicide arrives in waves on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

On Christmas Day, a 15-year-old Lakota girl took her own life. Soon afterward, a boy, just 14, took his.

Since then, a young man and six more girls, one as young as 12, have followed as this current wave continues to swell. There have been numerous additional attempts in the last few months on this South Dakota reservation of about 28,000 people.

Mexican woman lived like a "ghost" in Vancouver, was despondent after CBSA arrest

METRO VANCOUVER -- Lucia Vega Jimenez lived like a "ghost" in Vancouver.

She had no family, no close friends and worked illegally as a hotel cleaner, sending all her earnings to support her ailing mother in Mexico.

In the week before her suicide last month in a Canadian Border Services holding cell, the 42-year-old Vancouver woman was despondent.

Her savings had been stolen while she was in custody, likely by the one man she trusted, her boyfriend who refused to bail her out after she was picked up by border services authorities shortly before Christmas. Vega Jimenez hanged herself in the shower at the holding cell in Vancouver International Airport Dec. 20 and was taken to hospital, where she died eight days later.

Rick Hillier Calls For Public Inquiry In Wake Of Soldier Suicides

Former chief of defence staff Rick Hillier fears more soldiers may take their own lives over this holiday season and is calling for a board of inquiry or Royal Commission into what the military is doing to help those with mental health problems.

In an interview with CBC Radio's The House, retired general Hillier told host Evan Solomon the recent apparent suicides of four serving Canadian soldiers was a tragic and needless loss of life.

"What a tragedy it is and I really do worry about this next period of time, as we head into the Christmas season, that we could in fact see more," because personnel may feel more alone in the Christmas season as they are away from their combat units and comrades.

Tories on Senate scandal: from denial to obstruction

The government having left town, as it were, in a hail of bullets — one day before the post office announced it is ending home delivery — we are left to marvel at the prospect of a government, and a prime minister, who are quite literally hiding out from the public.

Not only was the House of Commons conveniently shuttered, but neither the minister responsible, Lisa Raitt, nor any Canada Post executives were on hand to answer questions regarding this drastic reduction in public services. But then, in this they were only following the example set by the prime minister, who has for months avoided answering questions about the scandal that is slowly destroying his government.

The dangerous anonymity that helps drive online suicides

A University of Guelph student's decision to stream his suicide attempt on the internet this past weekend raises the obvious question about what would drive him to want to end his life.

But equally perplexing is the fact that 200 people signed up to an online chat room to watch him do it — and in some cases goaded him on.

How could anyone take pleasure in witnessing another human take his own life?

Bank of America intern's death puts banks' working culture in spotlight

Calls have been made for an overhaul of the long-hours culture among young staff working for banks in the City of London after the death of a "dedicated" German student who had won a sought-after placement at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Moritz Erhardt, 21, had won a place as a summer intern at the London city offices of the US bank and was nearing the end of his placement when he was found dead in the shower at his temporary accommodation in east London by ambulance services on 15 August.

Rehtaeh Parsons Strip-Searched In Hospital, Says Dad

The father of Rehtaeh Parsons, the victim of an alleged sexual assault, says his teenage daughter was strip-searched by two men while she was receiving treatment for suicidal thoughts in 2012.

Parsons took her own life earlier this year when she was 17 years old. Her family alleges she was sexually assaulted by several boys at a party and a photo of the incident was circulated online. Her family said she was bullied for months, and the relentless taunting led to her death.

Suicide Is Leading Cause Of Gun Deaths, But Largely Absent In Debate On Gun Violence

WASHINGTON -- When faith leaders sat down with Vice President Joe Biden last week to talk about the next steps in advancing gun control legislation, they discussed the usual issues like background checks and gun trafficking. But one aspect of gun violence came up that united the group in a deeper way, according to one of the attendees, and it's an issue that's getting hardly any attention on Capitol Hill: suicide.

"That's when the meeting became emotional for a lot of folks," said Pastor Michael McBride, director of PICO National Network's Lifelines to Healing Campaign and one of the 15 or so participants in the private sit-down with Biden.

Inquiries into 50 military suicides remain incomplete

The Canadian Forces still has not completed inquiries into 50 suicides among military members, some from as far back as five years ago.

The military has boards of inquiries under way into the 50 deaths, including four from 2008 and seven from 2009.

Seven boards are still underway for suicides in 2010 and 20 for 2011. The 2011 inquiries include the suicide of corporals in Ottawa and Petawawa.

Neskantaga, Ontario First Nation, Declares State Of Emergency Amid Suicides

OTTAWA - Two recent deaths among the members of the Neskantaga First Nation have prompted the remote northern Ontario community to declare a state of emergency in the hope of getting help to prevent the spread of suicide.

The First Nation northeast of Thunder Bay has seen two of its members die over the last two weeks, throwing the fragile community of 300 into grief and fear for the stability of other families.

Military Suicides: One U.S. Veteran Dies Every 65 Minutes

WASHINGTON, Feb 1 (Reuters) - The most extensive study yet by the U.S. government on suicide among military veterans shows more veterans are killing themselves than previously thought, with 22 deaths a day - or one every 65 minutes, on average.

The study released on Friday by the Department of Veterans Affairs covered suicides from 1999 to 2010 and compared with a previous, less precise VA estimate that there were roughly 18 veteran deaths a day in the United States.

Military Suicides Reached Record High In 2012

WASHINGTON — Suicides in the U.S. military surged to a record 349 last year, far exceeding American combat deaths in Afghanistan, and some private experts are predicting the dark trend will grow worse this year.

The Pentagon has struggled to deal with the suicides, which Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and others have called an epidemic. The problem reflects severe strains on military personnel burdened with more than a decade of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, complicated by anxiety over the prospect of being forced out of a shrinking force.

Suicide attempts, self-harm rising in Canada's prisons

Cases of serious self-injury by federal inmates across Canada has nearly tripled in the last five years — a "dramatic" rise as prison conditions become more chaotic and overcrowded, according Canada's Correctional Investigator.

Howard Sapers said there were 912 incidents of self-injury in the 2011-2012 fiscal year involving 300 offenders — including cases of cutting, head-banging, self-strangulation, burning and ingesting harmful objects. Women offenders accounted for one-third of the recorded incidents.

B.C. victim of cyber-bullying commits suicide

VANCOUVER—A 15-year-old girl who posted a video on YouTube about being cyber-bullied to the point of depression has committed suicide — a tragic ending that has sparked online outrage and a message from B.C. Premier Christy Clark.

Amanda Todd first posted her video in September in which she used flash cards to tell her story about crying every night and suffering anxiety, depression and panic disorder.

DND edited NIS report on Langridge suicide before releasing it to the public

OTTAWA — Dogged by increasingly negative media coverage over the handling of investigations into the suicide of Afghanistan war veteran Stuart Langridge the Department of National Defence edited an internal police force report before releasing it publicly and to the soldier’s family, a federal inquiry heard Friday.

The revelation at the Military Police Complaints Commission inquiry was one of several indications that the independence of the National Investigation Service (NIS), the military’s detective agency, was compromised after Langridge’s parents went public with their grievances.