The recent murder-suicide of two Ulster County first responders casts a spotlight on the mental health of people who risk their lives to save others. Mindy Brugger's sister and daughter spoke to WAMC's Sam Dingman about the woman they loved. We also spoke to the Ulster County sheriff about a new wellness unit created to support them.
Read the full transcript below:
SAM DINGMAN:
This is WAMC's Northeast Notebook. I'm Sam Dingman. The recent murder-suicide of two Ulster County first responders casts a spotlight on the mental health of people who risk their lives to save others.
ALLISON CRAMER:
It was just part of who they both were. There wasn't a separation in emergency response Mindy and Jim versus mom and stepdad, Mindy and Jim.
SAM DINGMAN:
The new Ulster County Officer Wellness Unit sees the tragedy as an example of a problem that has plagued law enforcement for decades.
JUAN FIUEROA:
We've all heard the term "hurt people, hurt people. The same thing applies to law enforcement.
SAM DINGMAN:
On today's episode, we'll explore how first responders and their families are processing the rapidly evolving culture around wellness and law enforcement.
ALLISON CRAMER:
My entire life, there was always the scanner in the background.
SAM DINGMAN:
Allison Kramer grew up with Mindy and Jim Brooker. Mindy was her mother. Jim was her stepfather.
And for the record, before we go any further, I also reached out to Jim's family members for comment on this story, but didn't receive a reply. Allison told me that both Mindy and Jim always had one ear glued to the police scanner, it was common for them to jump up from the dinner table and run out the door to answer a call. Jim was a fire chief, and Mindy was an EMS tech who also volunteered with the fire department. For Allison, their work in emergency services was part of the fabric of her childhood.
ALLISON CRAMER:
You know, when I was a kid, it would happen all the time. We're out playing on the trampoline, and you see them both run to a car and off they go because there's an accident down the street. It was just part of who they both were. There wasn't a separation in emergency response Mindy and Jim versus mom and stepdad Mindy and Jim. You know, it was it's it's part of who they were.
SAM DINGMAN:
The police scanner was so ever present, Allison told me, that it took until a week after Mindy and Jim died for her to turn it off.
ALLISON CRAMER:
It wasn't until like I was in the house and it was quiet that I was like, "Oh crap, this has been the background noise of the last 36 years. You know, 32 years, something like that."
SAM DINGMAN:
Also, in the background and sometimes the foreground of life with Mindy and Jim was what Allison called tumultuousness. Mindy's sister Heather put it more bluntly.
HEATHER MCGREW:
She was like in an abusive relationship, and it's like a lot of it is not the kind that you fear or that leaves marks or anything like that, and can happen to anybody, and you don't even know that it's happening.
ALLISON CRAMER:
I will say my mother was not scared. If my if my mother was afraid, she would not have been in that house.
HEATHER MCGREW:
But there are these certain things that like nobody should be doing. And...
SAM DINGMAN:
Would you be comfortable saying what any of those things are?
HEATHER MCGREW:
Like stalking, and it doesn't necessarily mean somebody's like skulking outside your window. It is knowing your whereabouts, putting a tracker on your car, just you know somebody checking up on you all the time and making sure you are where you say you were going.
ALLISON CRAMER:
That was that was the way it was for my mother for a long time. Of like, no, I want to go do this thing, but I know I'm going to pay the price for it. And whether it's the silent treatment or the you know, like again, she wasn't physically scared, but you know, again, finding trackers in her car. Their relationship was toxic, and I'm not saying that all of that was Jim. Like, I mean, they-it was both of them at each other's throats.
SAM DINGMAN:
On Friday, August 21st, Mindy and Jim Brugger were found dead in their home in Plattekill, New York. An investigation determined that Jim shot and killed Mindy, and then himself. Mindy had filed for divorce earlier this summer. Their deaths sparked a conversation about the intense nature of their work and the toll it can take.
JUAN FIUEROA:
We've all heard the term "hurt people, hurt people. The same thing applies to law enforcement.
SAM DINGMAN:
Juan Figueroa is the sheriff of Ulster County. Domestic violence, he says, is a chronic problem in the law enforcement community. He told me he's haunted by an incident from early in his career, one that's eerily similar to the Brugger story. Back when Juan was a trooper in the late 1980s, he recalls going with his supervisor to visit the home of a fellow trooper who had a violent relationship with his wife.
JUAN FIUEROA:
We just talked to him, and that was it, we didn't solve the issue. We didn't want to talk about it. It's really personal, and we don't want the individual to lose their job. 20 years go by. The same individual basically ended up killing his wife and then killing himself, and that stuck with me.
SAM DINGMAN:
Decades later, Sheriff Figueroa says the problem persists alongside other issues like alcoholism, depression, and suicidal ideation.
JUAN FIUEROA:
It's because we're unwilling to reach out and get help, and are worried about our reputations and how that's going to affect their careers. Well if we don't do anything it's gonna be much worse than that.
SAM DINGMAN: Law enforcement officers and first responders, he says, deal with extraordinary pressure on the job. He worries in particular about the toll it takes on his younger officers, who are dispatched in high-stakes moments.
JUAN FIUEROA:
We had something that happened about a month ago where they saved someone's life. That the individual was going to, you know, jump from one of the bridges. These guys, they're in their 20s, I mean to go through that...
SAM DINGMAN:
Undersheriff James Mullen told me the impacts ripple out into officers' family lives.
JAMES MULLEN:
We miss a lot of sports. We miss you know dinners, and it's tough because you know they don't really understand it. The kids don't understand it, but they become accustomed to it, which is kind of scary.
They think that it's just normal by the time they're 15. They're like, "Oh, Dad's not gonna be here."
SAM DINGMAN: About two years ago, after watching these chronic issues play out repeatedly, Sheriff Figueroa decided
it was time to do something about it. He approached Ulster County with an idea: the Officer Wellness Unit.
In 2024, the county legislature voted to authorize the project. Sheriff Figueroa, Undersheriff Mullen, and licensed clinical social worker Connie Carr run the unit, whose services are available to people working in a wide range of professions: law enforcement, firefighters, EMS, even district attorneys.
One of the most critical elements of the program, the sheriff told me, is that he and his team don't wait for clients to come to them. Case in point, that situation he referenced earlier, where the two young deputies rescued a person who was threatening to jump off a bridge.
JUAN FIUEROA:
I called them up and I said, "Listen, you know, not a lot of people have an opportunity to save somebody's life and do what you did, and I just wanted to let you know that I appreciate that."
SAM DINGMAN:
After placing a call like that to officers involved in harrowing situations, the wellness unit follows up. They let them know there's a place to come and talk with a social worker, like Connie Carr.
CONNIE CARR:
Back in the day, it would be you know going to the bar or just you know just push it push it back here. We call it in the filing cabinet, but you can only put so much in the filing cabinet before your filing cabinet overflows.
SAM DINGMAN:
I asked Sheriff Figueroa about the deaths of Mindy and Jim Brugger. He said the story made him wonder: Are we doing enough?
JUAN FIUEROA:
I don't know what their situations in life may have been, but all I know is that they were first responders. It shouldn't come to that extreme. It should never ever come to the extreme.
SAM DINGMAN:
When I sat down with Mindy Brugger's daughter and sister, I asked them what they made of all this.
How much do you associate the nature of the work that she did and that Jim did with what happened?
ALLISON CRAMER:
I don't. I don't. I don't think that one had anything to do with the other.
HEATHER MCGREW:
My sister was just like cool under pressure. Like people, there are people that thrive in chaos, and there are people that don't. So she's definitely a thriver.
ALLISON CRAMER:
You know, my mom had the tendency to come off as maybe a little intimidating, maybe a little tough.
You know, like I remember going out with her one night, and I'm the type of person that I talk to everybody. I make friends everywhere I go, and we leave that night, and my mom's like, "I just don't get it. How do you do that? That you just everywhere you go, you make friends with everybody, and I just want to make friends with everybody, and I can't. And I'm like, well,
HEATHER MCGREW:
all of these qualities were so necessary to like be successful and make it out alive. Especially for her being in a...
ALLISON CRAMER:
primarily male-dominated field, where if she didn't have those qualities, she'd get walked all over. But underneath that was a person who cared very deeply about the people around her. She was an awesome mom. We talked five times a day at a minimum. We were constantly on the phone. She's a
fantastic grandmother. That was my mom.
SAM DINGMAN:
All of those feelings collided the day Allison finally turned off the scanner.
ALLISON CRAMER:
It was very overwhelming to to think that here's a sound that I've heard my entire life, and I'm I'm stuck in this place between bitterness and anger and sadness and grief, and I just couldn't listen to it anymore. It it had to go.
SAM DINGMAN:
Northeast Notebook is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It was produced by me, Sam Dingman. Our editor is Diane DeVore. Our executive producer is Lucas Willard. Original music by Eduardo Rivera. Consider subscribing to Northeast Notebook wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like the show, take a second to rate and review. It really does help others find the show. Thank you for listening.
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