‘I don’t understand how I can dwell with out him.’ Chicago cop who died by suicide was an immigrant and household man
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Celal Cenker Surgit didn’t take the standard path to change into a Chicago cop.
He performed goalie for an expert soccer workforce in his native Turkey, constructed an import-export enterprise in Russia and ultimately got here to the USA in 1997 and invested his earnings in actual property.
After his first marriage ended, he met his subsequent spouse, Reema Surgit, throughout an opportunity encounter at a restaurant he’d opened in Edgewater referred to as Arkadash Cafe. He requested for a date and the 2 shortly fell in love.
“He truly advised me afterward — he sort of creeped me out — that the primary time he noticed me he thought to himself that she’s gonna be my spouse,” Reema Surgit stated.
When the couple married in 2005, Celal Surgit started the method of becoming a member of the police power however didn’t inform his new spouse till after he’d handed all his exams.
Officer Celal Cenker Surgit poses together with his spouse, Reema Surgit.
For Celal Surgit, changing into a police officer had been a dream deferred. His father, a decide in Turkey, had discouraged him from going into legislation enforcement and as a substitute pushed him to proceed his research as a youthful man.
After spending a lot of his profession as a beat cop patrolling the Austin and Albany Park police districts, the officer’s colleagues grew involved Wednesday when he failed to point out as much as work.
Fellow officers conducting a well-being examine at his West Ridge house found him dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest, according to police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. He was 54.
Reema Surgit and their daughters, 17-year-old Tulin and 16-year-old Lana, are still processing the loss and the months that led up to the officer’s death.
“I don’t know how I can live without him,” Tulin said. “He did everything for me and just guided me through everything.”
CPD faced rash of officer suicides
In recent years, the police department has grappled with a troubling rise in suicides and stinging criticism of its efforts to provide mental health support to officers and prevent them from burning out.
But even before then, a U.S. Department of Justice report in 2017 had discovered the suicide price of Chicago cops was 60% greater than the nationwide common for legislation enforcement officers.
Between 2016 and 2023, 31 division workers died by suicide. In 2022 alone, probably the most devastating yr for officer suicides throughout that interval, seven Chicago cops took their very own lives — three of them inside a single moth that summer season and three extra inside every week that December.
Following that preliminary cluster of suicides, the division’s former wellness adviser Alexa James argued that routinely canceling officers’ days off was “inhumane” as she referred to as for a sweeping plan to handle psychological points.
Alexa James | www.namichicago.org
James, the chief govt of the Chicago department of the Nationwide Alliance of Psychological Sickness, stated the division is now transferring in the appropriate path.
She famous there’s “far more sources” devoted to psychological well being and “far more willingness and motivation from the person officers” to hunt assist. In the meantime, NAMI Chicago continues to coach officers on the police academy, which James credited for “actually attempting to string the concept of wellness by means of a ton of their curriculum.”
The division, nonetheless, nonetheless has solely 18 counselors serving its 11,684 members and apparently hasn’t met its longstanding aim of assigning one counselor to every of the 22 police districts.
A police spokesperson stated the division stays dedicated to increasing a program that gives free counseling companies to present and former cops and their households, noting that two new workplaces had been opened on the South and West sides final yr to make care extra accessible.
“Guaranteeing the psychological and bodily well-being of officers stays a high precedence for the Chicago Police Division,” the spokesperson stated in an announcement.
Regardless of the enhancements, James stated some officers are left with no help system exterior of the division.
“They don’t have a a lot bigger group the place they will discuss their work, they usually’ve misplaced relationships over it as a result of individuals have change into so polarized concerning the police,” she added.
‘He’s my largest love’
Reema Surgit stated her husband began rising despondent in December and had change into a shell of his regular self. His temper had “dulled.”
“I began speaking to him right here and there, like, is something happening?” she recalled. “However he wouldn’t say something aside from, ‘I’m simply fearful about some sure issues’ and that’s it … you already know, life and the way the long run’s gonna be.”
Reema Surgit had simply overcome an extended bout of despair after she was fired by the police division in 2019.
In a lawsuit filed in federal courtroom, she alleged she was “unlawfully terminated” after being subjected to discrimination based on her Muslim faith. But in March 2023, Judge Raymond Chang ruled in favor of the city and dismissed the case.
While Reema Surgit was consumed with the lawsuit, her husband’s real estate business suffered amid the pandemic. She acknowledged the case became “a big burden” on the family, noting that her husband had warned her against joining the police department in 2017.
As she tried to jolt him out of his malaise, he still showed some signs of his old self.
Just a few days before he was found dead, she sent him a text message saying she missed “the old Cenker,” using his middle name. “I’ll bring back the a–hole guy,” he joked.
Reema Surgit was in Saudi Arabia, where she grew up, when another officer called her Wednesday and said her husband had missed work. A police car had already been sent to their house, and she gave them permission to enter.
She said she was just thankful they got there before her daughters returned from school. Now, the whole family is struggling to find a path forward.
“Before I slept, he would say I love you and I would give him a kiss on the cheek,” Lana said. “I could not sleep without saying goodnight to him or wake up without saying good morning.
“He’s my biggest love, and he loved us more than anything.”
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