Families of 9/11 victims mourn across the globe

Families of 9/11 victims mourn across the globe

Most foreigners who lost loved ones that day had little urge to wave a flag. And many questioned the politics and wars that followed. Where, then, did they fit?

Yvonne Kennedy had handed the itinerary for her North American vacation to her son with trademark black humor. "This is just in case the terrorists get me," the 62-year-old said — as she always did — before she set out on her adventure, a retirement gift she'd given herself after a nearly 30-year career with the Red Cross.

One year after the attacks, Kennedy traveled from his home in Sydney to Washington, D.C., to attend a memorial service in honor of those killed on American Airlines Flight 77. At the ceremony.

A world away from ground zero, In a Lithuanian cemetery, the twin towers still stand. Vladimir Gavriushin lays white roses near the 6-foot granite replicas of the World Trade Center's skyscrapers,

A memorial he built to honor his daughter Yelena, one of the nearly 3,000 people killed on Sept. 11.

Gavriushin has buried rocks from ground zero under these tombstone towers, far from the place Yelena died — a place he can no longer afford to visit. And so, as the 10-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks approaches, he mourns for Yelena here, at his own ground zero.

He remembers frantically calling his daughter that day amid the terrified crowds in Brooklyn, where he was at the time: "She never answered."

As people from London to New Zealand learned their loved ones were among the dead. But though the pain transcended borders, foreign families have battled to cope with their loss from afar.

For some, it was impossible to make healing pilgrimages to the site of the tragedy, or to grieve alongside a community that understood their pain. Sept. 11 itself — a day that, for Americans, is inextricably tied to national identity, politics and patriotism.

Seminar seeks to help prevent police suicides

Another recent study by the Badge of Life, a group of active and retired police officers, medical experts and families affected by suicide, found that police officers have a higher suicide rate than the general public. The research found that while the suicide rate for the general public was 11 per 100,000 people.

A seminar on mental health in law enforcement hoped to help law enforcement officials deal with the stress of the job and help distressed officers before it becomes too late.

Several Norwalk Police officers joined about 300 police officials from around the state who attended the seminar, which took place Wednesday at Central Connecticut University and was sponsored by the Connecticut Alliance to Benefit Law Enforcement and the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.

"The difficult thing is that it's not always easy to identify someone who may be experiencing these difficulties," said Norwalk Police Chief Harry Rilling.

The seminar, titled "Training the Mind: Preventing Police Suicide and Promoting Mental Wellness," featured information about how to spot the signs and symptoms of emotionally distressed officers as well as instructions on how to get help for distressed officers and coping with stress. Rilling said the training is valuable, because it gives officers the tools to help identify "any personnel that is prone to harming themselves."

National studies show that about 140 police officers across the country killed themselves each year from 2008 to 2010, and that officers are three times more likely to kill themselves than to be killed by others.