Laredo police report dozens of suicide attempts and several deaths; committee urges better tracking and outreach

At the March 25 meeting of the City of Laredo Suicide Prevention Committee, Sergeant Ediberto Abalos of the Laredo Police Department’s Mental Evaluation Outreach Unit presented recent incident data and after‑action summaries, saying his team compiled a spreadsheet covering Feb. 26–March 25 that lists 13 attempted suicides and two deaths in that interval.

Abalos read details from multiple responses, including an incident on March 3 in which officers found a 39‑year‑old man at a residence who was later pronounced dead after an apparent self‑inflicted gunshot wound. Police recovered a handgun and a cell phone at the scene; detectives and the Webb County medical examiner are continuing the investigation and an autopsy has been scheduled, Abalos said.

Abalos also read after‑action notes for several attempted‑suicide calls (examples included overdose, cutting and a hanging) and described an incident on March 16 in which officers negotiated a woman down from a bridge and transported her for medical and mental‑health evaluation. He showed a citywide heat map of calls and said the incidents were geographically spread across weekdays and times rather than concentrated in a single neighborhood.

The numbers presented included two different tallies: Abalos’s spreadsheet for the Feb. 26–March 25 window and an earlier statement in his remarks that there had been "a total of five suicides" in 2026. Chair Dr. Julian Vasan and other members flagged the different counts during follow‑up questions; Abalos said he will check records and provide clarification where case histories or patient histories were unclear.

Committee members thanked Abalos for starting a consolidated Excel database to document dates, ages, gender and methods, and for compiling data useful for grant applications and training. Members agreed to share historical paper records the committee holds so the police spreadsheet can be cross‑checked and used for planning, training and outreach.

"We need to count how many ways we advocate for suicide prevention," Chair Dr. Julian Vasan said, urging the committee and partner agencies to use the data to inform prevention projects and to expand year‑round awareness efforts.

The committee discussed next steps including better public visibility for 988 resources, sharing local statistics with training partners and using the spreadsheet for grant support; Abalos said he would follow up with the committee to reconcile the counts and make the data available.

The meeting approved previous minutes earlier in the session by voice vote and adjourned after final announcements.