NEW YORK _ A New York police officer fatally shot himself in his Queens home Tuesday, the 10th suicide this year.
Sources said the wife of off-duty Sgt. Linhong Li found him in their Fresh Meadows home around 9:30 p.m. and called 911.
Medics rushed him to Jamaica Hospital, where he died.
The grim death toll has rattled the department, and the NYPD has retooled its response to department suicides, encouraging all officers to seek mental health counseling if they have suicidal thoughts.
Police Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch voiced strong words on the subject over the summer telling officers in a video post, "Don't f------ do it!"
"It solves nothing and leaves devastation behind you," Lynch said in an emotional August video. "Just don't do it."
Mayor Bill de Blasio made his own emotional appeal at the time, invoking the memory of his own father, who killed himself when de Blasio was 18.
"There is no feeling worse than wanting to help someone and not knowing how," the mayor wrote in a letter to the rank-and-file. "No matter how strong or tough you are, or how difficult it may be to accept, you always deserve help when you need it. The City of New York supports you."
