KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — A Knoxville police officer is trying to break the silence around suicide. Matt Lawson is on the co-response team made up of Knoxville Police Department officers and mental health experts from the McNabb Center.
Knoxville launched this program as a pilot in 2020 as a way to help people facing mental illness or substance use struggles. According to the city, the pilot program between the KPD and the McNabb Center pairs a master's level behavioral health specialist alongside a specially-trained KPD officer in order to respond to emergency calls that present a behavioral health need.
The program has seen success since its launch. Knoxville police said the team responds to anywhere from 125 to 150 calls a month. Lawson has been an officer with the department since 2008. In that time, he's seen his fair share of crises.
"Everybody is in a crisis at some point. To what degree that crisis is? We have to determine once we get there," Lawson said.
However, no crisis hits closer to home for Lawson than calls about suicide.
"So many people suffer in silence," Lawson said. " They feel that hopelessness."
Lawson said the silence saddens him the most. It's that same silence that led his brother to die by suicide without getting help in time.
"In 2019, my family suffered a tragic loss, my brother committed suicide," Lawson said.
Staff Sergeant Scott Lawson was a brother, friend, and a U.S. Veteran.
"He did six appointments in Afghanistan and Iraq in a combination of 12 years," Lawson said. "He was calm, he was a combat veteran, and saw a lot of stuff."
However, when SSG Lawson returned home, things changed.
"We noticed several times, after he started to come back from deployments, that just wasn't the same wasn't the same Alex that went over there," Lawson said.
Now, Alex is missed.
"Once he committed suicide, it's kind of became my place, my calling, my purpose — to make sure that we advocate for suicide support, and awareness," Lawson said.
Lawson said he approaches each call with a gentle heart. He may not know what they're going through, but he's sat with someone who has.
"It's very mentally exhausting, but it's very gratifying as well to when somebody sits down and says, 'I've never met another officer like you. I've never met a unit like this,'" Lawson said.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available all hours of the day at 1-800-273-8255, or just by calling 988. Once people call the number, they will be connected with a professional who will listen to whatever concerns may be on their minds, helping them through crisis situations.