Richard Berdnik, the sheriff in Passaic County, New Jersey, shot himself dead in Clifton on Tuesday. Witnesses say he went into the bathroom at Toros, a popular Turkish restaurant there, and they heard a gunshot soon thereafter.
Federal authorities on Jan. 17 arrested two sergeants and a sheriff's officer on charges involving an alleged beating of a pretrial detainee at the Passaic County Jail in January 2021. Berdnik last Thursday issued a memo that he would be laying off 29 sheriff's officers as a result of the shutdown of that same jail.
That's the eighteenth paragraph of the linked story. More on that situation here.
If you are in crisis, call 800-273-8255 or visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org. You can also text via crisistextline.org or by texting START to 741741 from anywhere in the United States.
Previously: Four L.A. Sheriff's deputies killing themselves hours apart just a coincidence, says department
