
Do Blue Wives Matter, What Are They? Listeners are introduced to a perspective rarely heard in mainstream news or social media: the voice of a police spouse. The episode features retired Police Captain Rob Sweaza and his wife Kristen Sweaza, two people whose shared experiences ultimately led to the creation of their nonprofit support group, Blue Wives Matter.
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John J. Wiley
They're a happily married law enforcement couple. His career spanned more than 30 years in law enforcement. He retired to the rank of captain. During his career, traumatic events inspired them to start the Blue Wives Matter movement. Welcome to the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show. In the Law Enforcement Talk Radio show, we are joined by special guests talking about their experiences, their realities of investigating crimes, plus those who have experienced horrendous trauma. Police, first responders, military and victims of crime share their stories. Hi John, I'm John J. Wiley. In addition to being a broadcaster, I'm also a retired police sergeant. Be sure to check out our website letradio.com and also like us on Facebook Search for the Law Enforcement Talk Radio show calling us from California, we have a couple on the phone. Happily married couple. Yes, I know some people think that's a rarity nowadays, but they are a law enforcement couple and he's retired from law enforcement recently at the rank of captain. It's Kristen and Rob Sueza. Kristen, thanks so much for being a guest on the show. Very much appreciate it.
Rob Sueza
Thanks for having us, Rob, and thank you.
John J. Wiley
I very much appreciate it.
Rob Sueza
Thank you. It's our pleasure during your career.
John J. Wiley
And I want to first of all, fast forward a little bit. Certain things happened during Rob's career and their relationship with him working in policing because it's really, it's a family affair. It's not just one person doing this. By the way, certain things happen that they have started a community actually started quite a while ago called Blue Wives Matter, not lives Wives with a W. So first thing you all should do is go on Facebook and make sure you look up Blue Wives Matter, the community and click like and follow what they do. First of all, thank you so much for Blue Wives Matter. What is it, Kristin, that Blue Wives Matter does?
Kristen Sueza
We offer support to our fallen officers families regardless of cause of death. So we're not, we're kind of like a catch all. We don't turn anyone away. We take retired, you know, line of duty, suicide, cancer, accident, any, anyone. We even have a firefighters widow because she couldn't find anyone, any type of support group. So, you know, we, we accept everyone, which I think is a little different from a lot of other nonprofits.
John J. Wiley
What, what kind of help do you offer?
Kristen Sueza
Well, we offer lots of different type of help. You know, sometimes it's emotional financial. We have different programs. We have a tax credit program where we send out law enforcement patches to the children of our support group members every month. We have programs where we will assist in like at the holidays sometimes they need a little extra financial help to cover their kids, you know, holiday spending. We offer, going into this new year, we're going to start offering mental health help, which I'll let Rob get into. And you know, and a lot of times it's, I've met, you know, widows with that have lost their spouses to similar types of cause and that has been, you know, a big help to them. I think meeting someone else that has lost a spouse in a similar way is very helpful and I'm able to do that. And I've also, you know, before COVID hit, I also would hold luncheons, you know, to local spouses, either spouses that all involved in the same agency or, you know, just ones that were local. And that was very rewarding too.
John J. Wiley
So many people have had on the show that have lost their spouses. In particular, law enforcement officers talk about, you know, after the funeral, after all that's done, which is A lot that all the support, all the companionship, all the friendship starts to disappear rather rapidly. And that seems to be a common thread. Is that something Blue Lives Matter addresses?
Kristen Sueza
Yeah, and that's why we, that's why I founded Blue Lives Matter. We actually lost an officer from my husband's agency. And at that point, I think we had been married about 23 years and I would, you know, always believe that had something happened to my husband, I would be cared for by his agency. And after we lost an officer off duty to a duty related cause and we, you know, we buried him. And my husband stayed close to the widow and introduced me because I actually had never met her. And so we were taking care of her and I became close to her and I watched as, you know, the support went away and I was a little horrified and I thought, wow, if this could happen within our agency, it must be happening other places. And so I started to find other widows. And I found that this was a major issue within our law enforcement, fallen officers, families that. And regardless, it happens to our line of duty families too. It happens to a lot of the families. And I don't think it's malicious. I just think that they don't know how to care for the family and they don't know what to do or what to say. A lot of times it might be survivor's guilt, but I think we need to teach our agencies how to care for their families better.
John J. Wiley
I think you're absolutely 100% correct. I can just tell you from my own personal experience this, by the way, it's not just a law enforcement thing. It's also other first responders, it's also military. And by the way, I've run into people that their spouses were, let's just say they're truck drivers or they were accountants, didn't matter what it was. And when that person suddenly died unexpectedly, for whatever reason, they're surrounded by a ton of support. They got a lot of community people bringing over food. Everybody's there. And then after time, the awkward stage hits and so many of them just, and I've done this, they. We run away. I say this and Rob, I'm sure will understand, when we had line of duty deaths in the police department, we had procedures and policies and we knew what to do. And unfortunately it's because of so many occurred in the past. However, no one ever prepared me for the conversations with the widow or the widower. What do you do? What do you say? How do you act? So what I'd wind up doing is I'd say I wanted to claw my way through a wall like a rat just to get away from him. Because I did. I was afraid I would make things worse.
Rob Sueza
You know what, John? That's a good point. And you know, law enforcement agencies and law enforcement officers, there is no intent when they say things to, you know, say we're here to support you. There's no intent to eventually walk away. But it's kind of a natural process with grief. And it's actually, it's okay to distance yourself. What is not okay, and that we got to get a little bit better at is that when promises are made and then you walk away from those promises, it can be detrimental to the recovery of the of the widows.
John J. Wiley
We're going to return to this conversation in just a matter of moments. We are talking with Rob and Kristen Sueza calling from California. Their organization is Blue Wives Matter. Check them out on Facebook. Be sure to like and follow. This is a law enforcement show. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Of all the radio stations in the United States, there are no other shows like the law enforcement talk radio show. And on Facebook, there's only one official page. Do a search on Facebook for the law enforcement talk radio show and be sure to like the law enforcement talk radio show Facebook page.
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John J. Wiley
Current conversation with Kristen and Rob Sueza calling us from California. Rob is retired police captain and of course he's outranked. Just like I'VE always been by his wife Kristen, who they've been a career law enforcement couple. And during Rob's career, certain things happened and led them to start a community, a group called Blue Wives Matter. That's W I V E S matter. Check them out on Facebook. Blue WivesMatter. Be sure to give them a like and follow Rob. Before we went to break, we started talking about, I think a lot of departments and a lot of people in general when someone dies suddenly and we have that original rush to surround the widow, the widower, the family, help them out. We start reaching afterwards. This phase of uncomfortability where people get busy and they tend to ignore that family.
Rob Sueza
Yeah, that's correct. And again, I think it's a natural process and it's okay just recognizing that that can occur. I can tell you in our situation, when we had our officer pass away a few years ago, you know, things were said and again, not with malice, but when you hear somebody say, hey, call me if you need anything or we'll be there whenever you need anything, you better be prepared to answer that phone. And you know, unfortunately, sometimes and again, it's normal we start to distance ourselves. And so the widows no longer feel comfortable with making that call or when the call is made, you know, the response is not what they expected. So you gotta be real careful about how you address that. It almost kind of set some boundaries. I know in our case everybody wanted to help, but nobody bothered to stop and ask what the widow really needed. And so it's kind of important in the law enforcement community you have a liaison that works directly with the family that can be kind of the spokeswoman person and kind of keep an eye out of what's going on.
John J. Wiley
I'm glad you brought that up again. There's a lot of policies and procedures that we all knew and people became very comfortable doing this because they did so often. And I hate to say that it happens so often across the United States and it's happening alarmingly rates and it's not always, for lack of better words, it's not always the gunfire and violence that we expect. Quite often it's automobile accidents quite often, especially after 9 11, it's 911 related cancers. So many other things pop up. And another note going along what you said, when I retired, I got hurt and retired young at 33. I swear when that door shut, I was obsolete and I was part of them at that point. And you feel like this is your whole life. And I can imagine same way for the spouse. This is Your whole life or a big part of your life, and all of a sudden it's gone like a big empty void.
Rob Sueza
Absolutely. And just, you know, think for a moment about the families that are left behind. You know, their connection to the law enforcement family was through their spouse. And now that connection is no longer there.
John J. Wiley
Kristin, what would you say is the biggest common need that a lot of the widows express or widowers?
Kristen Sueza
That their officer is not forgotten and that their children still have some type of mentoring that the officers don't forget Their kids either. The kids have lost their father and they don't need a replacement for their father, but some type of male mentorship. My husband has been mentoring kids for, well, since we lost an officer, you know, almost, well, four years ago this month. And he's been mentoring his three sons ever since. And he's had to do things like teach them how to shape things that their dad should have done. But, you know, that's not there anymore. And so, you know, that's very important. Just a connection to the agency is monumental. That's not always there, especially in cases.
John J. Wiley
Of suicide, which is such a prevalent problem and has been. Yeah, Rob is. It sounds like he's close to my age. I remember when I was a rookie police in the academy, we were talking about the alarming suicide rate and that was 1980 when we had authors like Joseph Wambaugh, who I believe he was retired la or somewhere from that area. And he wrote a lot about the mental health issues. There's always the underlying. But it was a huge problem then and it's a huge problem now. And it's not just a huge problem with our law enforcement community. It's a huge problem with our EMTs or our firefighters and our military.
Rob Sueza
Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, you know, most. The statistics show that most officers actually die as a result of suicide as opposed to being killed in the line of duty. And I think where we need to go with this is that public service agencies, whether it be police, fire, emt, we need to start looking at wellness and mental health issues as a work related issue. And unfortunately, suicide is not deemed to be a workers comp type incident that the families can get support. And if you dig deep into their experiences, and I've been through a lot of experiences and handled PTSD on my own, just like maybe you have as well. If that's not treated and not dealt with like a work related incident, bad things can eventually happen. And so I think that the community needs to look at it a little bit different. I believe it's getting better. But we need to start looking at this as a traumatic brain injury related to PTSD and treat it and handle it in an appropriate manner.
John J. Wiley
Everyone I know that did a career in law enforcement, it doesn't matter how long, some are affected very soon, some after 20, 30 years. But everybody walks out scarred emotionally and mentally. And the best way I can put this is I consider this to be like a brain injury instead of a mental disorder. Treat it the same way you would an orthopedic injury. For example, I had shoulder surgery about seven years ago. I got hit by a car getting out of my police car and many years down the road I had to have surgery. Well, that meant seeing a surgeon, follow up appointments, physical therapy, physical therapy on my own afterwards and learning to do things differently that I can't. I'm not going to be the same guy I was before the injury.
Rob Sueza
I agree with you totally. And I don't really like to view it as a mental health issue. I like to view it more as mental wellness and being proactive in your mental wellness when you find yourself experiencing stressors that are beyond the norm, getting some type of care or assistance early on. And that's one of the things through Blue Lives Matter that we also hope to promote is not only mental wellness within the law enforcement community, but with these families that are being left behind because once the person passes away and dies, these families are oftentimes left alone, not knowing how to deal with their own mental wellness. But you make a lot of really good points there and I agree with you. This is an injury and honestly, it's a treatable injury. It's something that can be fixed before the suicide occurs, before it gets much, much worse. It takes a cultural view change.
John J. Wiley
We're going to talk more about this and we're going to talk about the line of duty death that inspired Rob and Kristen to start doing things a bit differently. If you're on the Clubhouse drop in audio chat app, be sure to look for me and follow me. My name's John the letter J. Wiley W I L E Y. You can also search for E T radio show. That's John J. Wiley W I L e Y at let radio show on the Clubhouse drop in audio chat app. We're going to take a short break. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.
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John J. Wiley
During conversation with Rob and Kristen Sua from Blue Wives Matter on the law enforcement show, go to Facebook, search out Blue Wives with the W Matter. Be sure to click like and follow if you're like me, Rob and Kristen. There have been so many deaths since I came on the job. Just my department alone. And there have been. I can't keep track of all the ones that happened nationally. Going back in your history with the department you served with, you mentioned there was a particular officer who who died about four years ago that seems to have impacted what you're doing. Kristin, can you tell us about that?
Kristen Sueza
March 29th of 2017 my husband's agency lost an officer off duty, but it was deemed duty related. And at the time, you know, I was an admin wife and I had been an admin wife or maybe people better know it as a brass wife. My husband was a lieutenant at the time and so you know, when your husband is admin, you tend to not be invited to things because nobody wants to like, you know Party with the boss or hang out with the boss anymore. So I had kind of stepped away from being friends with a lot of the newer officers, wives. And so I hadn't met this couple before. He had been an officer for just under 11 years, I believe, or right around 11 years. And so I hadn't met this couple before, but my husband had been working with him for the week prior and going out to his house every day and just working with the family. And so I knew about kind of what was going on. And then my husband called and said, you know, he had passed away. And I was like, what? What happened? And, you know, it turned out to be his heart. I, you know, was horrified. And my husband put together his funeral with a couple of his close friends, other officers, couple of. I'm sorry, the officer that passed away, a couple of his close friends. And they put together the funeral. And I, you know, attended the funeral with. With some of the wives that I knew. And I. My husband was asked to give the. The eulogy. The officer had said that he trusted Rob the most. And so his widow, you know, asked Rob, because that's not usually the case. Usually the case is that the chief has asked you to give the eulogy. So, you know, my husband got up and it was very difficult for him to give the eulogy. Sorry. And then afterwards, we were helping her to what we call their binder. When the officer passes away in our area, they're given what's called a binder with the paperwork of how to settle their affairs.
Rob Sueza
And so at that point, that's kind of when I stepped in a little bit more and assisted the widow with her financial situations and understanding benefits. And what we learned along the way. Well, we learned a lot of things from this family. And first of all, I need to, you know, recognize, you know, he passed away. He left behind three wonderful boys, an amazing wife, but they were all kind of. We were all kind of left in the dark. And as we were going through this and trying to figure out what she needed and learning the process, we learned some things. Like, for example, medical insurance gets severed almost immediately. What I've also learned is it doesn't matter whether it's line of duty or off duty, medical insurance gets severed almost immediately. You know, we learned about other benefits, benefits, financial benefits. But what we saw was there was a big gap in how to help this widow. And that was a big, you know, push forward for my wife to start Blue Lives Matter. A lot of it was based upon that incident. Again, we learned so much from it that there are so many gaps. And honestly, you know, you had mentioned before that this happens. And, you know, we're trained to handle it in a certain way, but when it actually affects your agency, sometimes that training goes out the door. People don't know what to do. They don't know what to say. They don't understand the benefits. They don't understand what's there for the family. And so that's part of one of the reasons why they kind of step away from the family. So Blue eyesmatter, my wife really started it to kind of fill that gap that naturally occurs when a death occurs within an agency.
John J. Wiley
And you're so right about this, Rob and Kristen. And I can't help but think of my own experiences of what I've been through. And my first reaction is that I don't want to make the situation worse. And a good friend that was killed in line of duty, he worked for me. I was promoted sergeant. He's my first squad. And I transferred to another district a couple months earlier, and he was shot and killed. She said to me, look, you can't make it worse. There's nothing you can do. There's nothing you can say that can make it worse because the worst has already happened. What really is the worst thing you can do? And I granted the financial stuff, that's city Hall. That's not the department. And the department would do everything could to take care of the people. They always told us, we got your back, but the worst thing we can do, she told us, is to ignore them and not even talk to them.
Rob Sueza
I completely agree with you. And real quick, when you mentioned about, you know, city hall's responsibility, one of the things that we've experienced with some of these widows is when the administration from the department says, don't worry, you'll be financially taken care of. And then city hall gets involved and realize that administrator spoke out of tune. That's not necessarily the case. So, you know, sometimes the message isn't properly being delivered. But the best thing that you could really do for a widow or a family is just to be there and just to listen and watch for the cues and ask them. It's okay to say, do you need this? Are you okay with us doing this for you? It's okay to ask those hard questions, too, of how are you doing? And, you know, mean it with sincerity. But, yeah, you know, Blue Lives Matter has done a phenomenal job, in my opinion, of closing the gaps. And I think one of the things that I'd like to credit my wife in doing is that she's, she talks to all of these widows on the phone regularly and she's able to connect people with like situations. So if your spouse died of COVID she'll find you another spouse who, you know, another widow whose spouse died of COVID and connect them and try to create those relationships.
John J. Wiley
That's my hat's off to you, Kristen, because I can't see too many people stepping up the plate and saying I'll take that burden of responsibility because there's nothing about it is pleasant.
Kristen Sueza
Thank you. I mean, I really care about all the families that are in my support group and there's nothing that I wouldn't do to help them.
Rob Sueza
Does that she honestly means it?
John J. Wiley
One of the things that a lot of people need to consider and this is something that the American public just doesn't get about police and partly because Hollywood doesn't tell them. Not only do we have a huge amount of compassion for our co workers, they become big part of our family, but we carry that around. When someone we don't know or child on a post we worked in gets involved in a drug game and gets killed, we feel the pain that the family goes through. We feel the frustration they go through. We have our own frustrations that we couldn't prevent that. And the best we can do is try to bring the person responsible to justice and to trial and we have no effect on the outcome or very little. That's beyond us as well. We're talking with Rob and Kristen Sueza from Blue Wives matter. That's W I v e s. Check them out on Facebook. There's only one official Facebook page for the show. Do a search on Facebook for the law enforcement talk radio show and be sure to click like don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.
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John J. Wiley
Return conversation with Rob and Kristen Sueza from Blue Y. That's for the W matter. Blue Wives matter. Do a search on Facebook for Blue Wives matter. Click like and follow and send them a message and see how you can help out. Rob, Kristen, look, I know the damages. I know the stress that can impact police families because I've been through them. And as a matter of fact, my first marriage ended in divorce and I tell people a primary reason why was my inability to handle situations better and the effect of what happened to me better. We didn't know as much then as we do now. So I'm glad that we have made a lot of progress. But one of the things that I really didn't comprehend and here's the reason why, no matter how giving we are as an individual, we're all basically self centered to some degree or another. It takes an effort to get beyond my needs, my thoughts, my how I think things affect me. I really didn't comprehend the amount of fear worry that my mother, my ex wife, my sisters had when I was still on a job. Kristen, what was it like for you?
Kristen Sueza
Well, I think I'm an anomaly because I, my thought is, is that if you worry you're never going to sleep. I had to believe in his training and in him. I also grew up as the daughter of a law enforcement officer so that might have, you know, and my dad actually was a motor for LAPD and he was hit by a driver while he was on his motor and was catastrophically endured. So I had kind of already been through something terrible and we had already gotten that call in the middle of the night and Rob and I, you know, started off on, you know, kind of a bad term, well, not bad terms. But six weeks into our dating life he was involved in a fatal officer involved shooting. And so, you know, I got that call early on too. So you know, we kind of got that stuff out of the way early. Back in 1994, when he was involved in his shooting, there was no help back then, you know, he thought the department shrink for, you know, the standard one visit was given no help whatsoever and given a few days off or whatever. Well, I mean, I don't even remember now. It's long ago, 25 years ago. No, I don't even know, 27 years ago. And he and I spent that time that he was given off together. And, you know, he was freaked out. And, you know, every time the anniversary of that date came up, you know, he was solemn and, you know, we kind of tiptoed around for a couple years, but, you know, we got through it. And I just. I did not worry. And I think that helped with our long, happy marriage. And he always, you know, shared about his job, so I always knew what was going on. And he was very open about it. He was very open when, you know, he had a bad call, he talked about it.
Rob Sueza
You know, if I can interject real quick, I think some of the issues that, you know, things work out really good for us, but I see other families that don't fare so well. And a lot of it is kind of the culture that officers believe that, you know, they need to kind of keep everything in tight. Sometimes they're not living the best, healthiest lifestyles. You know, we. We all know that cops, you know, some cops drink, some cops drink too much. We never really promoted within the agency until probably the last few years when I say agency, the industry, wellness and how to take care of yourself and being more proactive in your own wellness and communication. And so I think it's gotten a lot better over time to kind of help reduce some of that worry that the families might experience when an officer goes to work. But again, there's been a lot of work and a lot of effort put into us as an industry learning how to. We do a pretty good job of taking care of our communities, but we don't always do a great job of taking care of our own community within our own selves. And that's getting a lot better, but it still needs a lot of work going forward. I actually retired, and I'm getting my master's degree in social work, so that I'm hoping that I can impact some of that training within the law enforcement community on how to build and establish better relationships and how to deal with your own mental wellness and try to come out of the career just as successful and healthy as you went into it.
John J. Wiley
And that takes a lot. It really does. And by the way, my hat's off to you. It sounds like you want to be a therapist and do that kind of work, that I'm of the belief that we as a blue family have done a much better job when it comes to the big issues, when it comes to the big deals or they call critical incidents that they didn't have that term when I was a new police. But where we seem to fall short is the daily grind that wears down on so many people. And by the way, there's also a very big financial part of this. I've talked to some guests on a show, said it cost them 60 to 80 thousand dollars to train. By the time they go through recruiting to train and put one officer on the street, if you lose that officer after three years because they've like fried out or five years, the community is taking a huge financial hit. Then there's the human part of it. We can't afford to treat these people either disposable. We just can't do it.
Rob Sueza
No, I completely agree with you. And you know, I work on the west Coast. You know, I'm in Orange county area. You know, when you start averaging out those costs financially is a lot more. It's about $200,000 to train and get an officer through their first year, through the FTO training. But then you, again, you add on top of that the emotional loss that you could be taking by not taking better care of your people. And again, I think it's really getting a lot better. But there needs to be more work, and it needs to be a combination of grassroots from the lower ranks all the way to the administrative ranks.
John J. Wiley
And one of the things that we can all do is, and I'm. I feel uncomfortable this, and I'm retired police is telling them thank you. When you see a uniform officer, tell them thank you. It's very simple. Or as I always say jokingly, wave with all your fingers, not just one. Kristen, what's one of the things that you would recommend? What does blue wives matter need the most? How can someone listening help?
Kristen Sueza
Well, we need patches. Patches. For our patch program, I send out upwards of 200 patches a month out to these kids, and that's a lot. And I depend on donations from citizens, law enforcement officers and agencies to send in patches so that I can continue on with this great program. Unfortunately, the amount of kids joining the program is growing faster than I can keep up with. So I accept new patches, used patches, you know, police, emt, firefighter, forestry, you know, whatever is very helpful. I actually just got a huge donation of patches from a captain. Captain Bill Burt of Missoula County Sheriff's Office is sending me his personal collection as well as a retired Mesa Police Sergeant Darrell Freeman that my husband worked with in the 90s just donated his collection that dates back to the 70s.
John J. Wiley
So patches and it could be military, it could be fire, it could be police and always donations financial. Always help. Kristen and Rob, thanks so much for your service for all you do and for being a guest on the show is very much appreciated.
Kristen Sueza
Thank you so much.
John J. Wiley
Do you want to be a guest on Law Enforcement Talk rated show and podcast? It's really quite simple and before you get into this notion that I'm not a cop, I wasn't a cop, I don't have something contribute well, the show is about investigating crime. That's one aspect of it from the real life perspective of those who did it. And then it's also about trauma, how trauma impacted them, often crime based, but not always. Our guests quite often are law enforcement officers, other first responders, military victims of crime, their spouses or survivors talking about how trauma impacted them, what happened, how it affected their lives, and how they rebuilt their lives after. If you want to be a guest, just contact me. It's really simple. Send an email to jayetradio.com that's jayetradio.com or go to letradio.com and the contact Us page and you can get me right there as well. I'd like to thank our guests for coming on the Law Enforcement Talk Radio show. The Law Enforcement Talk Radio show is a nationally syndicated weekly radio show broadcast on Numerous AM&FM radio stations across the country. We're always adding more affiliate stations. If you enjoyed the podcast version of the show, which is always free, please do me a favor and tell a friend or two or three. I'll be back in just a few days with another episode of the Law Enforcement Talk Radio show and Podcast. Until then, this is John J. Wiley. See ya.
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Rob Sueza
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Episode: Do Blue Wives Matter, What Are They?
Host: John "Jay" Wiley
Guests: Kristen and Rob Sueza
Date: November 30, 2025
This episode delves into the often-overlooked struggles faced by the families of law enforcement officers, especially those who have lost a loved one in the line of duty or to duty-related causes, including suicide and medical issues. Host John J. Wiley is joined by Kristen and Rob Sueza, founders of Blue Wives Matter, a unique support organization for law enforcement and first responder spouses and families. The conversation explores the motivations behind Blue Wives Matter, the continuum of trauma experienced by survivors, gaps in institutional support, and the ongoing mission to foster a stronger, more compassionate support network for bereaved families.
Timestamps: 01:39–03:40
Quote:
"We offer support to our fallen officers' families regardless of cause of death. So we're not, we're kind of like a catch all. We don't turn anyone away."
— Kristen Sueza (03:40)
Timestamps: 04:13–05:52
Quote:
"I've met widows that have lost their spouses to similar types of cause, and that has been, you know, a big help to them."
— Kristen Sueza (04:50)
Timestamps: 05:52–09:15
Notable Quotes:
"All the support, all the companionship ... starts to disappear rather rapidly. And that seems to be a common thread."
— John J. Wiley (05:52)
"There's no intent to eventually walk away. But it's kind of a natural process with grief ... what is not okay ... is when promises are made and then you walk away from those promises."
— Rob Sueza (09:15)
Timestamps: 11:27–14:37
Quote:
"Their connection to the law enforcement family was through their spouse. And now that connection is no longer there."
— Rob Sueza (14:23)
Timestamps: 14:37–16:24
Notable Quote:
"Their children still have some type of mentoring—that the officers don't forget their kids either. The kids have lost their father ... but some type of male mentorship."
— Kristen Sueza (14:45)
Timestamps: 16:24–19:09
Quotes:
"Most officers actually die as a result of suicide as opposed to being killed in the line of duty. We need to start looking at wellness and mental health issues as a work related issue."
— Rob Sueza (16:24)
"I consider this to be like a brain injury instead of a mental disorder. Treat it the same way you would an orthopedic injury."
— John J. Wiley (17:29)
Timestamps: 21:52–25:14
Quote:
"Medical insurance gets severed almost immediately ... we saw there was a big gap in how to help this widow. And that was a big push forward for my wife to start Blue Lives Matter."
— Rob Sueza (25:14)
Timestamps: 26:53–29:12
Notable Quotes:
"The worst thing you can do ... is to ignore them and not even talk to them."
— John J. Wiley (26:53)
"She's able to connect people with like situations ... and try to create those relationships."
— Rob Sueza (27:50)
Timestamps: 32:18–37:28
Quotes:
"Things work out really good for us, but I see other families that don't fare so well. And a lot of it is kind of the culture that officers believe that they need to keep everything in tight."
— Rob Sueza (35:57)
Timestamps: 37:28–39:06
Quote:
"You add on top of that the emotional loss ... by not taking better care of your people ... there needs to be more work, and it needs to be a combination of grassroots from the lower ranks all the way to the administrative ranks."
— Rob Sueza (38:28)
Timestamps: 39:06–40:43
Quote:
"We need patches. For our patch program, I send out upwards of 200 patches a month out to these kids ... I depend on donations from citizens, law enforcement officers, and agencies."
— Kristen Sueza (39:29)
On Continuing Support:
"Nobody bothered to stop and ask what the widow really needed ... it's kind of important in the law enforcement community you have a liaison that works directly with the family."
— Rob Sueza (12:24)
Connection Lost:
"I swear when that door shut, I was obsolete and I was part of them at that point."
— John J. Wiley (13:26)
On Mentorship:
"He's had to do things like teach them how to shave—things that their dad should have done. But, you know, that's not there anymore."
— Kristen Sueza (14:45)
For more information or to donate patches, visit Blue Wives Matter on Facebook.