Psychological overall health ‘critical’ for LEOs following Fla. major cop’s self-inflicted gunshot wound
Sarah Loewe 
By Douglas Hanks

Miami Herald
MIAMI — With the county’s police director gravely wounded in a hospital from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava on Wednesday emphasized the mental wellness dangers of law enforcement.
“This incident is also a tragic reminder of the essential part that mental health and fitness performs in our regulation enforcement officers,” Levine Cava said at a morning press conference, flanked uniformed county police directors and commanders. “The actuality is that these positions are incredibly demanding, they are stressful and they’re emotionally taxing.”
Levine Cava declined to say what Alfredo (Freddy) Ramirez, the county’s law enforcement director given that 2020, told her in an anguished cellular phone contact the two experienced several hours right before he shot himself on a highway outside Tampa. He and his wife, Jody, still left a convention hotel in the town following a described altercation that drew the notice of police.
“He was pretty remorseful,” Levine Cava said of what she described as a temporary discussion by mobile phone as Ramirez was driving absent from Tampa around 8:30 p.m. “I reassured him we would communicate.”
Aspects stay sparse as to what occurred that prompted Ramirez to leave a regulation enforcement conference Sunday.
As the Miami Herald reported prior to Wednesday’s push conference, Ramirez offered his resignation to Levine Cava during the call. She did not make a final decision on the provide, expressing the two required to discuss on Monday.
Law enforcement said Tampa officers have been responding to a possible domestic dispute when they encountered the Ramirezes in their 12th-floor hotel place. Police also claimed there was a report of a guy wielding a gun at the Tampa Marriott at the start out of the Florida Sheriff Association event the two were being attending.
“I are unable to speculate as to anything that was heading on,” Levine Cava said.
She employed the push conference to remind law enforcement officers they have obtain to the county’s mental overall health products and services, and urged citizens to call a suicide hot line in Miami-Dade by dialing 988 if they needed assist.
Ramirez, a Democratic candidate for sheriff in 2024, has been quickly replaced by an interim law enforcement director and interim main protection officer overseeing general public security under Levine Cava. He assumed the two roles in 2022 under Levine Cava, a to start with-expression Democrat.
Authorities have not but characterised the self-inflicted gunshot wound by Ramirez following pulling around Sunday night time on I-75. Jody Ramirez reportedly was in the car or truck with him when he pulled more than and shot himself with his gun.
Levine Cava also did not characterize Ramirez’s condition of head when he stopped his auto. But she and Oliver Gilbert, the county fee chairman who also spoke, tackled psychological wellness difficulties in the context of Ramirez’s self-inflicted wound.
“There’s almost nothing wrong with in search of support,” reported Gilbert, who joined Levine Cava in Tampa on Monday ahead of returning to Miami. “It’s a sign of power to look for assist. We under no circumstances want to be this sad again. We hardly ever want to be this broken.”
In her feedback, Levine Cava praised Ramirez as a stellar police leader who was appointed Miami-Dade police director beneath her Republican predecessor, Carlos Gimenez, and became 1 of her most reliable senior directors.
“I appreciate Freddy. He is an incredible human currently being,” she claimed. “He is the ideal of what law enforcement means. I have overall rely on in his management.”
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