LAPD Officer committed suicide at Sheriff's Station

LAPD mourns suicide of veteran narcotics detective
Colleagues say Susan J. Clemmer, 41, was 'always smiling' and showed no troubling signs. She shot herself in the head at a Santa Clarita sheriff's station Monday night, police say.
By Richard Winton and Joel Rubin
July 8, 2009
Officers throughout the Los Angeles Police Department grieved Tuesday as news spread that a veteran detective had killed herself in the lobby of an L.A. County Sheriff's Department station Monday night.

Susan J. Clemmer, a well-regarded officer assigned to the LAPD's Gang and Narcotics Division, walked into the Santa Clarita sheriff's station about 9:15 p.m. and spoke to the sheriff's deputy at the front desk, according to sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore and LAPD officials.


Clemmer, 41, placed a box of personal items on the counter and asked to speak to a different deputy. After a brief conversation with a second deputy, when Clemmer was briefly left unattended, staffers heard a gunshot and rushed out to find her with a single gunshot wound in her head, police said.

No one else was injured.

What Clemmer said to the deputies, and whether she identified herself as a police officer, remained unclear Tuesday.


The death of the 19-year LAPD veteran left officers throughout the tightknit department stunned.

"We're in shock. It came as a complete surprise," said Capt. Kevin McCarthy, one of the commanders of Clemmer's unit. "She was always smiling and easy to work with. There was no indication that anything was wrong."
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LAPD mourns suicide of veteran narcotics detective