Kevin Briggs

Sergeant Kevin R. Briggs (also known as the Guardian of the Golden Gate Bridge^[1][2]) is a California Highway Patrol Officer who encouraged upwards of two hundred people to either not go over the "rail" or come back to solid ground from the "chord" of the Golden Gate Bridge that crosses the San Francisco Bay. Briggs retired in late 2013 from the California Highway Patrol and spends his time as a Global Professional Speaker focusing on Crisis Management, Suicide Prevention, and Leadership Skills through his company, Pivotal Points.

Biography

Kevin Briggs' first experience in law enforcement was working for the California Department of Corrections at Soledad State Prison. From there, he transferred to San Quentin in 1988 until he transferred again to the California Highway Patrol in 1990. After working for four years in the Hayward area, he transferred to Marin, getting the opportunity to "work the bridge." While on patrol, he encountered numerous individuals clinging to life by a thread - individuals who had lost hope and could see no way out of their current situation and ready to jump off the bridge to what they assumed was a sudden death and ending of their pain and hopelessness. Dropping from the bridge at an average height of 220 feet almost always ends in a painful death (although a few people have survived.) During his career, he estimates he dissuaded people from ending their life on the Golden Gate Bridge about twice a month, and had done so since 1994, the year he started patrolling the bridge. Responding to crisis calls, he intervened using compassion, a gentle voice, eye contact, respect for the person, and his innate ability of "listening to understand" to encourage from jumping, with only two people deciding to jump after he interceded.^[3]

According to Briggs, when he first began working on the bridge he was not made aware of its dark side, nor did he have any training in suicide prevention or crisis management. Talking to officers who had worked the bridge for years, focusing on attending training that would help him learn skills to help people in crisis, and taking an FBI Hostage Negotiators course are a few of the things that have helped him hone his skills to use during a crisis and helped him create his plan for successful interventions. In 2003, a typical conversation with someone over the rail or on the chord started by asking how the person is doing, followed by asking what their plan is for the following day. If they did not have a plan, Briggs would attempt to help them make one.^[4] In 2013, he would ask people, "Are you here to hurt yourself?"^[5]

In May 2013, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention recognized the California Highway Patrol Officer with a Public Service Award in suicide prevention. Briggs accepted the award on behalf of the California Highway Patrol.^[5][6] In 2013, he also received the Outstanding Officer Award from the American Society for Industrial Security, the Public Service Award from the Bay Area Jefferson Award Foundation, the Heroes Award from the Northern California Association of Public Safety Officials, and was honored with a California Senate Resolution by Senator Jim Beall. Moving forward, Briggs was honored by CA Assembly Member Marc Levine with a California Assembly Resolution in 2014, the Matthew Silverman Memorial Foundation chose him for a Matt's Heroes Award, and in September 2015, he was awarded the Warren Williams Award jointly by the American Psychiatric Association and the California Psychiatric Association.

NBC News chronicled Briggs and reported on his impending retirement. After his retirement from the California Highway Patrol, he began focusing his work on suicide prevention.^[7] He is also a veteran of the United States Army.^[8]

Briggs is a mental health consumer himself - he suffers from depression related to his highway patrol officer and work leader experiences (including a motorcycle accident in which he was severely injured), cancer at a young age, losing his grandfather to suicide, losing his mother at a young age to cancer, and other personal and family tragedies. Through it all, he realized at a very early time in his life the importance of a strong support system, and the value of his family and friends in helping him through his dark times.

Briggs is active in the media, sharing his story of hope and help, to encourage others to share the same. His TedTalk - The Bridge Between Suicide and Life - was filmed in Vancouver, Canada at the Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference 2014 and as of 11/3/2015 has had more than 2 million views. Other media events include a ZidiLife interview, #SPSM Chat with Dr. April Foreman, the Creative Giant Show with Charlie Gilkey, America with Jorge Ramos, an interview with Dr. Vikas Shah of the United Kingdom, the Legacy Project, USA Today, NBC interview with Kate Snow, and many other events.

Briggs is also an active presenter and suicide prevention and mental health advocate. He actively promotes his message of Suicide Prevention, Crisis Management, and Leadership at various venues across the world: Ciudad de las Ideas (Mexico), 2015 Congresso LOUD (Mexico), AirBnB, Kaiser Permanente, The Kim Foundation, Laughs for Life, Ball State University, Marquette University, Colusa County Health Department, MHRETAC, Northern Michigan University, KY Crisis Intervention Team Conference, Adanta Behavioral Health Services, Northwestern Community Services Board, Carson J Spencer Foundation, Snow College, New Zealand College of Clinical Psychologists Conference, MATES in Construction (Australia), New South Wales Police Biannual Mental Health Contact Officers Conference, and many, many other venues.

His mantras are #Listen2Understand and #WeRInThis2gether, which shares the message of hope and helping each other.

Briggs is an author and his first book "Guardian of the Golden Gate: Protecting the Line Between Hope and Despair" with Sam Mellinger was published by Ascend Books (www.ascendbooks.com) in July 2015. As described by Wm. “Bill” Schmitz Jr., Psy.D., Clinical Psychologist with the US Department of Veterans Affairs and Past-President of The American Association of Suicidology, the book is about "...Briggs' long and decorated law enforcement career. The book describes unique interactions with some of the over 200 individuals who had gone to the Bridge to end their life. While he had no special training, nor had he received any warning about the all-too-frequent, all-too-tragic dark side of this historic landmark, Briggs learned quickly that there was an entire skillset that he would need to master to be truly successful in his career. Briggs interacted with people who were literally on the precipice between life and death, as dense traffic whizzed by on the Bridge behind them creating noisy reverberations among the metal structures. Many times, the tepid climate of the Bay beneath them sent shivers of both fear and cold for the person whose life hanged dangerously close to the edge as well as the man who so often attempted to save them. While The Golden Gate Bridge is certainly a picturesque tourist attraction for many who approach it to snap photos with the historic landmark in the background, they will never understand the far more terrifying conditions on the bridge itself when a person's life is on the line. Nevertheless, this was Briggs’office – not from the warmth and safety of a crisis center call line or the plush (or at least furnished) office of a mental health profession – where most suicide interventions occur. While Briggs shares the lessons learned from such a high-profile crisis response role, it is his humble and open self-disclosures of his near death experiences (cancer at age 21 is only the first of several brushes with death) and family history (he, like many, have been touched by suicide and depression) and his own challenges (depression, parenting and confronting suicidality in one’s own family) that make his narrative so personal. Having helped over 200 people “choose life,” since he (like all of us) doesn’t “save people, it’s their choice” on whether or not they climb back over the rail, Briggs has a very unique and powerful perspective on suicide prevention that occurs in people’s “darkest hour.” I may be a bit biased in my review of this book as I have had the pleasure of talking with Kevin as he was a featured guest on the suicide prevention social media Twitterchat #SPSM that had a co-occurring video component. Nevertheless, this should be mandatory reading for police officers as they are often the ones engaging in the most immediate suicide crises. Crisis workers, irrespective of their discipline, training, or setting can benefit from the personal lessons and wisdom from Kevin Briggs – father, law enforcement officer, veteran, cancer survivor, TED talk speaker, and suicide prevention advocate."

Briggs is the proud father of two sons and lives in California.

See also

• Law enforcement in the United States
• Don Ritchie
• Yukio Shige

References

External links

• Kevin Briggs at TED