(wind howling) (slow somber music) (birds chirping) (car engine roaring) - Of all of the states in the Union, we have the number one suicide rate.

- Wyoming, you're in a Western state, you know?

You have this cowboy attitude, you know, bury it, built in.

- I can do it myself.

- Yeah.

- Probably 75% of Wyoming knows somebody that has committed suicide or knows somebody that knows somebody.

It's a vicious cycle.

- Because there's such a stigma related to mental health, and getting help, suicide unfortunately becomes an option.

- You don't really think about it until happens until you know someone, until you're impacted by suicide.

- It doesn't care if you're rich, if you're poor, there's no social class with it.

It can happen to anyone.

- With law enforcement officers, no matter what we do, no matter how much efforts and resources we throw at this, suicide in our profession is still very high.

- It's hard enough to lose an adult to suicide, but when you lose a teenager, an adolescent, that is devastating.

- I feel like suicide's a problem in Wyoming, because we lack the resources to help someone.

- There's been so much loss in a lot of these communities, because of things like suicide.

- I just think it's opened to everyone's eyes to like the hurt and the pain that it causes.

- I know that we've felt intense grief and pain, and it is not easy to recognize, and I didn't see it.

(slow somber music continues) - I think, you know, you're a pretty strong person if you get help for it, because a lot of people don't, - Nobody really has an idea of how to stop the suicide epidemic in Wyoming, making sure kids know that it is okay to talk to people.

- I tell everybody, you know, on October 4th, I would've said suicide is the coward's way out.

On October 5th, my whole world changed, and you think completely different.

- In the last 10 years, our suicide rate has increased by, I think, about 40%, which is horrifying.

It's preventable.

it's preventable.

(slow somber music continues) - [Announcer] Funding provided by a private donation from Jack and Carole Nunn.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wyoming, a proud partner with Wyoming PBS, and other community organizations to provide funding for education, to raise awareness of the mental health crisis in Wyoming, reduce stigma around mental health and connect people to available care that promotes positive mental health, and hopefully saves lives.

(slow somber music continues) (slow guitar music) - [Shane] We got married on August 15th of 1992.

- [Andrea] So we tried pretty hard to have a family.

And then I had Molly and Cole.

- [Shane] When Cole was little, he was really talkative.

- He'd make friends with the people in line at the grocery store, and Cole never knew a stranger.

- Cole and I kinda had a love-hate relationship (laughs).

We were always fighting as kids but he was super protective.

- They would argue, but Cole would stick up for his sister.

And he had various hobbies, like whenever Cole did something, he was all in.

I remember he got into guitars, and then, he kind of got tired of that, and then he got into pool.

- Pool.

And he had to have it.

- Had to have the best pool stick.

And then he was all in on the team roping.

- Cole was funny, he was sweet, he was caring, he was affectionate, he was a cowboy.

(slow guitar music continues) - He probably had one of the biggest hearts.

He was very, very loving, very kind.

He was kind of the glue that just brought everyone together.

Didn't matter who you were, he brought you together.

(slow guitar music continues) - [Molly] Mom!

Oh, there they are.

- [Andrea] We found this 40 acres, and first thing Shane did was build a roping arena out front.

- We usually try to rope three, four times a week when Cole would get home from school, and he would start getting stuff ready, and I'd get home from work, and we'd saddle horses, and go practice, and that's what we've done for the last 10 years.

Cole graduated from high school last May, 2021.

Cole's plan was he was tired of the cold.

He didn't like the cold.

So he was gonna go to Arizona and rope, and he was gonna go to Central Arizona College.

- [Andrea] That was one of his favorite memories, was that trip down, just traveling is fun.

That's something we've always done as a family.

(slow guitar music continues) But then this is in the spring of 2021.

Things are shut down.

(slow somber music) He signed up for his classes.

Well, they didn't even offer any in-person classes.

- The impact that COVID and shutting everything down has on people, especially teenagers.

You're coming straight out of high school, you know, your junior and senior year are the best years you've had, because you have all your friends, and everything's going good, and then you up, and freshman in college.

Well, you're a freshman in college, not in the normal sense like we're used to.

Now, you're a freshman in college where it's all online, except one class a day.

- We knew that he was lonely and we said, come back.

You don't have to stay down there, you can come back, but he didn't wanna do that.

- He was trying to separate, he was trying to start himself off in the real world by himself.

Cole had friends that he opened up to.

He just didn't have them in Arizona with him.

- [Shane] He was struggling, I mean he wasn't doing good in school at all, and we talked about it.

- I had offered to take the week off, and go down, and help him get caught up, and figure out how to do this online school, and he said, "No, mom, I don't need you to."

I wish I would've (sobs).

(slow somber music continues) - Here in Wyoming, it's cowboy up, so there's this mentality of deal with your problems on your own, you shouldn't need to ask for help, if you talk about it, then it's a sign of weakness.

You should be able to just pull on your inner strength to be able to get through difficult times, and sometimes that doesn't work very well.

- We live in a state where, you know, you put your boots on in the morning, and you take care of it.

You know, I'm the type of person I don't ask for help, and I think that just passes on to your kids, and that's just how we do it.

- A lot of these kids did grow up on ranches, and were taught to be tough, and keep your head down, don't tell people how you feel.

That's why they struggle with mental health now, they grew up seeing their parents act like that, and now they feel like they can't open up.

- During the pandemic, We have seen this unprecedented amount of people that are struggling for various reasons with mental health.

Our number of people that are in crisis has escalated.

- I think we are in a mental health crisis.

In Wyoming in particular, we are really geographically challenged.

You have individuals on vast swaths of land that need help.

- There's a lot of isolation in the state.

If you live on a ranch, you could have no neighbors for miles, and miles, and miles.

- COVID has had a great impact on mental illness, because of this sense of isolation, this sense of a lack of community.

As soon as you take that away from individuals, they feel like all they need to do now is sit at home.

We need that community piece, so it's crucial.

So whether that's a faith-based program, whether that's getting back involved with a church, or their own faith-based pieces, whatever that might look like, sometimes it's difficult in Wyoming to find those pieces, and plug in with other people who are gonna be empathetic to what you're going through.

- Some people feel a sense of guilt or worthlessness, those feelings that you're responsible for things that you can't quite meet up to the expectations.

And then people have thoughts about dying, and they start planning.

We really have to think about suicide in terms of all of the influences in someone's life, the social, the spiritual, the mental health that goes along with that.

(slow country music) (birds chirping) (car engine roaring) (tense dramatic music) - I'm the Chief of Police of the Casper Police Department here in Casper, Wyoming.

You know, the Chief of Police kind of manages the overall public safety goals of the community.

(phone ringing) I like to say that I carry the flag of the department.

Here in Wyoming, the rural nature of Wyoming means we're spread out a little bit.

We kind of make due on limited budgets.

We make due with limited personnel.

- Billings says desert snow coming.

Billings says domestic terrorism training, May 10th & 11th, be proactive- - General citizens have no idea.

For every time that I have a single officer parked at a big box store, dealing with a shoplifter.

I have 2 1/2 incidents going at the same time, dealing with somebody that is suffering from mental illness and suicidal ideation.

(tense dramatic music) - I'm on a 352.

I would say on a daily basis, there might be a night where you don't have anything that you deal with mental health or anything like that.

And then the next day you might have, you know, five, six, 10, 15, however many.

But as of late, I would say we get probably anywhere between five and 10 a week.

- I think it's something that at this point, everyone is aware of the need to address the issue.

And speaking of, suicidal subject just came out.

So it's a safe to tell, somebody called in saying that an individual expressed the desire to kill themselves, and that apparently, he shot at somebody.

- The person that's thinking on taking their own life, they have a gun in their hand, or perhaps upside their head, or in their mouth, it takes every officer that we have, the vast majority of those cases, they end up with us being able to, and for the most part, talk these people into willingly going with us to get treatment for their needs that they need right now.

(slow dramatic music) - [Preston] What's this they're telling us about you apparently shooting somebody?

- Just a few months ago, you know, this came home to the Casper Police Department, and it came home in a way that none of us really anticipated.

One of our most beloved employees that was known as the most outgoing, the most gregarious and tragically that appears to have been a facade.

A facade that we did not see the signs, and he tragically took his own life.

- First responders in our state, and even nationally, often face post-traumatic stress disorder..

In that profession, a lot of people don't like to acknowledge that they may be having a trauma response to some of the things they're seeing or experiencing.

It is very real.

- If y'all have any information about the whereabouts of these wanted persons, gives us a call at 235-8278, or- - In terms of suicide, one of our biggest risk categories is men between the ages of 40 and 60.

It's not what people think.

They think it's women generally, and it's not, it's usually men that are the highest risk category.

- That Cowboy Code here in Wyoming, it means that our officers are not gonna be asking for help, there's a stigma attached to it, they worry that they'll be deemed not to be able to do the job, and so in Wyoming, it's particularly distressing for people when they fall short at those ideals.

And so they tend to tend to fight those battles on their own, oftentimes they don't even bring their spouses and their families to the fight.

They just try to hide it from everybody.

(slow somber music) - I think that it's just important to know that reaching out for help is so much better than the alternative.

I don't want anyone to feel as alone as Cole did in the time, and it just breaks my heart to know that he felt that way, and felt like he didn't have anybody, when there's so many people that cared about him, there is a whole community, a whole school that is just broken-hearted.

(slow dramatic music) - Sunday was Molly's birthday, October 3rd.

She and I were in Big Piney, and he called her when she was warming up before she raced, they talked for a half an hour, and I remember thinking that's odd.

It's nice, but it's odd.

- There were no signs, and I wish I just would've recognized something, or would've told him I couldn't wait to see him, or something, so he had something to look forward to.

He was telling us everything we wanted to hear, but yet, he was just struggling.

- Then Monday, we were on speaker phone (sobs), and we talked for half an hour.

He said, what's the point of life, you go to work, you eat, you sleep, and you do it all again.

And I wish I had a better answer for him.

I wish I would have known to ask more, to go deeper.

(slow dramatic music continues) - And the next morning I was driving to Casper, and my phone rings, and it's Ray, and that's where Cole was staying.

I don't know why, but I knew something, just in my heart, I knew something wasn't right, and he said, Cole killed himself last night, and.

(slow dramatic music continues) - He called me (sobs), and I remember exactly where I was sitting.

It's total helpless, I can't fix this.

- I was at school, and I had sat down to take a quiz.

And my science teacher gets a phone call.

He hangs up and he goes, "Molly, they need you in the office, bring your stuff."

My parents pull up.

(laughs) And I really regret saying this.

I look at my mom and I go, "Who died?"

And she looks at me, and she goes, "Cole."

And my heart dropped, and I screamed bloody murder, and it was just something that I would never wanna feel again.

(slow dramatic music continues) (tense dramatic music) - The stages of grief are never more apparent than they are in circumstances like this, that first stage of disbelief.

But eventually you come around to being angry.

It's the same feelings that are held by family members, and friends, and loved ones.

You can't help, but get angry over, you know, why didn't you come to us?

Why didn't you let us know?

And the bonds that we create in our profession are lifelong, they're lasting, and they're strong, and so when we lose one of our own through whatever method, it is absolutely damaging to the entire department.

We're coming up on six months from that ordeal, and my police department has yet to fully heal from it.

We still have employees that miss him dearly, that miss the camaraderie, and the influence that he had in their lives.

- Well, thanks for your help, appreciate you.

- [Keith] It's something that we'll continue to try to help our employees through for years to come.

- My Lieutenant passed away, and we all had a debriefing with that, and that was extremely helpful, 'cause I was relatively close with the Lieutenant.

He was kind of like a brother to me.

- As a survivor of someone who committed suicide.

It's extremely traumatic for those that are left behind, the grief process is completely different, because my grandfather didn't just die naturally or in an accident, and I know in my case, there was no answers, and no reason why this happened.

- Suicide takes the pain that you're dealing with, and just puts it on somebody else.

It just passes the pain down the line.

- Molly made a statement one day.

She, I think she said, "Cole's lucky.

He only had to experience this once, and we have to experience it every day."

- You'll feel grief forever.

That's one thing that I've come to realize , it's not getting through it, you become, it becomes part of you.

(slow somber music) Before that horrible day was over, probably in the middle of the afternoon.

I'm sitting out front, and Molly came, and said, "I'm going to school tomorrow."

And I said, "You're not going to school tomorrow.

You can't, this is awful, you need to be with us."

And she said, "I have to go set these kids straight, and tell 'em what really happened."

- There was a person at my school, who I had heard spread rumors about how my brother had passed away, and I wanted to go to school the next day to beat her up.

Oh, I was so upset.

(slow somber music) - So we talked about what we should do, Molly, and Shane, and I agreed that we would make a Facebook post, and tell people what happened.

We need to share Cole's story in hopes of helping other kids be brave enough and fearless, and say, I don't feel right.

I need to do something.

We need to not be afraid to get help for ourselves.

- In my mind, that's where it starts is talking about it, and recognizing it, and then I think that's where helping to remove the stigma starts.

The state as a whole needs to do something.

(slow somber music continues) - I think schools kind of need to up their counselor game.

You walk around a school, and you see maybe two or three suicide awareness posters, and that's about it.

It's one of the things I really struggled with after Cole passed away.

It's something that people should be able to talk about.

- It's not something that we were ever like taught about, like to acknowledge in school, not something to be like aware of.

The only time you hear of like mental illnesses is, like, if you take a psychology class, and then, you don't really go into depth, and that's just really the end of it.

- Youth and mental health is a really important topic.

Something that I don't know that we've embraced enough over the last 10 or 15 years, but I'll say that we've seen some great things in Wyoming, starting in August of 2020, Wyoming finally became the last state to add their very own in-state suicide lifeline.

We call 'em a Crisis Center, people can call in, and we'll be able to get those people hooked up with local resources.

We know that at least one of the centers specifically has engaged in at least 16 active rescues since they opened in August of 2020.

And those active rescues, those are people that were absolutely at risk for eminently completing suicide.

(people murmuring) But we also have a text message service now called Safe2Tell.

(slow somber music) - Safe2Tell, like, I know that's a big thing in Wyoming, but I think people are scared of like the repercussions of after that, 'cause like you don't know what's gonna happen after that text or after that phone call that you get off with that person.

Like, are they gonna send the cops?

Are they gonna, are they gonna get you in trouble?

'cause you're not in trouble if you talk, like if you try to get help.

- I think the most important aspect of mental health is access to resources and spaces where you can be genuine and express what's going on without fear of judgment, to be open about the things that they struggle with, and the things that they need.

- I grew up pretty rough, always had nothing, or not enough.

- It's all part of that education component, and recognizing, and validating that what those teenagers are going through, that those are very, very real issues, and can have a negative effect on their mental health in general.

- It's important to be involved in community.

It actually brings about healing and opportunities to share your story, instead of holding all that shame and guilt in.

- In the law enforcement profession, you know, my goal as the Chief of Police is clearcut.

I wanna borrow my employees from their family members, and I wanna borrow them for 20 or 25 years, but at the end of that time, I'm sworn to give those employees back to their families, sane, whole.

It is absolutely an ongoing process.

(birds chirping) (slow somber music) - [Shane] Hey!

(horses galloping) (fence clanking) (slow somber music) - I think I'm doing good.

I feel like I was kind of going through that cowboy up mentality.

I tried to be strong for my parents, and I went and saw a therapist after that, and it was easier to open up to her, because she wasn't grieving at the same time.

I think I'm taking it one day at a time, and as a family we've learned to open up more.

- I still like to hang out with the Allens, 'cause they're great people.

You know, I miss my friend, he was there for me when nobody else was, and he got a group together that I absolutely love, and I appreciate them.

- The Allens made me feel like a part of their family, like from the very beginning, the first time I ever came over, they were super kind to me.

- [Connor] I wouldn't say no to them ever if they needed help with anything.

- I don't think we've figured out yet how to keep moving forward.

I mean, you can go through a couple days, you feel all right and then, it hits you again, and you know, so I don't know when it lessens, when it stops, and we're not there yet.

(slow somber music) - We need to add another code to the Cowboy Code of Ethics, be somebody's pickup man.

(whistle blowing) - [Molly] In rough stock events, there's a pickup man.

You have that eight seconds where it's all focused on the rider.

(people murmuring) When you're at the end of the ride, they ride up next to you, and the rider kind of grabs on to 'em, and they kind of help 'em off the horse, so they don't get hurt.

- I got ya.

- You got me?

- Yep, always.

- You got me?

- Yep, always.

(announcer murmuring) - [Shane] Everyone needs a pickup man.

That's the best cowboy in the arena, the pickup man.

Everybody needs help.

- Somebody.

- [Shane] Somebody to help 'em.

- [Molly] Everybody needs somebody to talk to.

Everybody needs a shoulder to cry on, and somebody to have a heart to heart with.

(slow somber music) - We live in a community, in a state, that really hearkens back to the Cowboy Code of Life.

There's a lot of qualities in that that are amazing, there's a lot of qualities that help us to have grit, and yet there's a part of that Cowboy Code, there's a part of that independence that says, "Boy, I can just do this on my own," And I think that's a tragedy, because we can't, we're not made to do any of that on our own.

- It's okay to get help, and it's okay to talk about your problems, and it's okay to reach out to even your family members.

Those are the first people that you should turn to, because those are the ones that are gonna give their time and their energy to help you through it.

- It's identifying the people in your life, and going to talk to somebody when you're in that bad place, and it's not easy, it's hard.

(congregation singing) - [Connor] To slow this or stop this, you just need to take care of your own people.

You need to reach out, people take care of people, and if you're not doing that, we're not doing our job.

- Some of it is our responsibility to our community, and the people in our community.

- Someone seeking mental health services, while it might be for them as the person, the impact reaches far beyond that.

It impacts their children, their spouse, their family, their community.

If we can battle that stigma of someone showing up at a provider's place of work for them to do what they do best and that to be seen as a strength.

I think there's a lot to be gained from that.

(uptempo dramatic music) (uptempo dramatic music continues) (water flowing) (uptempo dramatic music continues) (uptempo dramatic music end)