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Kevin Cullen

After anguish of suicide, Pat Rogers’s family finds purpose

Pat Rogers (left) and fellow Boston Police officer Jennifer Penton at a June 2012 event.Laurie Swope/Globe Photo/File/Globe Freelance

A couple of years ago, right before Thanksgiving, Pat Rogers stopped by his mother’s house near Adams Village in Dorchester.

“We were talking about when to have Thanksgiving dinner,” Kelly Alves, Pat’s sister, was saying. “Pat was trying to figure out what shift to work so he could come by for dinner. Pat being Pat, he was laughing, joking.”

Pat Rogers was a Boston cop, and after sufficiently busting his family’s chops, they settled on a time for dinner and he said his farewells.

He walked over to his mother, Kathleen Cosgrove, and kissed her goodbye, right on the forehead, as he always did. Kathleen later remembered he didn’t look at her, as he usually did. He just kissed her on the forehead and walked out the door, his gunbelt over his shoulder, saying he was off to work.

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Three hours later, Pat Rogers was sitting on the couch in his West Roxbury home. There was a six-pack and a bottle of tequila within reach. There was a gun, his service weapon, even closer. He held it in his hand, and at some point he raised it.

I remember the days that followed. Furtive whispers. Shaken heads. A cop I know came up in Greenhills Bakery in Adams Village and told me.

Pat Rogers? No way. Pat Rogers?

Pat Rogers was a big, strapping, handsome guy. He was a tough cop, but he was a very compassionate cop. About five years ago, I saw him talking to a well-known homeless guy in Fields Corner, near the T station on Dot Ave. I don’t know what the guy did or didn’t do, but I saw Pat pull some money out of his wallet, press it into the guy’s hand and then climb back into his cruiser.

Pat Rogers was one of the most widely known Boston cops in America because he had been a featured character on the reality TV show “Boston’s Finest.” But for all that notice, he had to feel awfully alone, sitting on his couch, when he raised his gun.

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When a police officer she knows arrived with the news that Pat was dead, Kelly Alves just assumed he had been shot in the line of duty.

“No, Kelly,” her friend said, “He killed himself.”

Kelly’s head spun. Pat? Pat took care of everybody. There was nothing that Pat couldn’t handle. How couldn’t he take care of himself?

“Like every police family, we always worried about that phone call, about that knock on the door,” Kelly said. “But never in a million years did we see that coming.”

They found out later that Pat had planned it for some time, even paying off a new truck he had just bought.

At first, Kelly was furious. How could he do this to his mother, to everybody who loved him? And then, as time passed, as she learned more about the incidence of cops killing themselves, Kelly Alves left the anger behind, finding instead the compassion that her brother had when he encountered the forgotten among us.

“For Pat to leave my mother like that, he must have been in a really bad place,” she said.

Not long ago, Kelly Alves was talking to Pat Rose, the head of the Boston Police Patrolman’s Association, and Ed Kelly, who is president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts and, more importantly, a Dot rat like Pat Rogers who knew him all his life. Kelly Alves wanted to do something, not just to remember her brother, but to help others like him.

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“We were talking about the stigma, that so many police officers are reluctant to admit they need help,” she said.

On Friday night, they’re going to have a time for Pat Rogers, at Florian Hall in Dorchester. But it’s really not just to remember Pat. It’s to send a message. And the message is, if the job in particular or life in general is starting to feel overwhelming, it’s not just OK to ask for help, it’s necessary.

Over the last year, so much of the debate about policing in America has focused on those who abuse their authority. They are the vast minority but they get the most attention, and that’s to be expected. But there is another side to all of this. Police officers who spend their waking hours seeing things that make you feel helpless or hopeless need the same compassion as that homeless guy on Dot Ave whom Pat Rogers biffed some money to.

That time next Friday at Florian Hall might not seem like a big deal, but it is. This stuff doesn’t get talked about nearly enough. Pat Rogers’s family is confronting it head on. This is more than putting 20 bucks in the kitty that will go toward promoting awareness of police suicide and preventing it. It’s about starting a conversation among the people who need to have it most.

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“I don’t know if I’m supposed to say this, but I’m going to say it,” Kelly Alves said. “The money is great, the donations are great. It will help a great cause. But what I really care about is that all those officers who show up will see that they can ask for help, that there are people there for them. If one officer doesn’t take his life, then Pat didn’t leave us for nothing. If one officer remembers this night, then Pat made a difference.”


Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cullen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeCullen.