Years Later, Seattle Police Officer's Suicide Recognized as Line-of-Duty Death

As an undercover Seattle police detective, Bryan Van Brunt was unbelievably good at living the made-up lives of the criminal characters he inhabited: an Aryan biker and gunrunner, a drug dealer, an underground gambler and criminal fixer.

What he struggled with was living his own life, once the disguises were gone.

Van Brunt took his own life on Sept. 13, 2019, leaving behind a shattered family and stunned friends and colleagues, all of whom considered his death to be job-related — that he died in the line of duty, no different from if he had been shot down in the street. The stress and trauma of years working undercover, juggling lies that could cost his life, had taken their toll on the 41-year-old father of two.

The city of Seattle didn't think so.

Records show the city attorney's office fought efforts by Van Brunt's widow, April, to win survivor's benefits and an enhanced line-of-duty death pension, appealing when decisions were in her favor and hiring outside counsel to oppose her application, according to Department of Labor and Industries documents and pleadings.

Regardless, the family prevailed, and Van Brunt's workers' compensation pension was among the first ever awarded to a Washington law enforcement officer or firefighter who took their own life, according to the family's lawyer.

On Friday, more than 5 1/2 years after his death, the Seattle Police Department placed a plaque honoring Van Brunt on its Memorial Wall for officers killed in the line of duty, and his battle banner — bearing Van Brunt's badge No. 6719 — joined 62 others hanging from SPD's flag.

"Long overdue"

Interim Chief Shon Barnes, in a ceremony Friday morning at Seattle police headquarters attended by more than 100 of Van Brunt's friends, colleagues and family, presented April with a folded flag. His two children, Bryn, 18, and Sander, 14, placed a wreath below the pewter-colored plaque honoring their father. Bagpipes played "Amazing Grace" and prayers were offered.

Barnes said those honors and recognition were "long overdue" — a sentiment held by everyone there, based on the response.

The brief ceremony included comments from officers who worked with Van Brunt and a psychiatrist who treated him. Speakers pivoted from mourning his death to urging his colleagues to mind one another's mental health.

Dr. James Hammel told the mourners that Van Brunt suffered from "profound PTSD" from his years undercover, and he told Van Brunt's family he had never had a patient who worked harder. "His resilience was extraordinary."

He said Van Brunt's legacy should be that "we actually encourage mental health treatment" among first responders and "that we not stigmatize them."

Mark McCarty, an attorney who was friends with Van Brunt and who served as SPD's personnel director and counsel under former Chief Gil Kerlikowske, acknowledged that "everybody is uncomfortable with the way Bryan died," but said that shouldn't discourage addressing the issue of suicide in law enforcement head-on.

"I had to fight the whole city to get where we are today," he said. "We should treat people who are suffering better."

Records from Labor and Industries and the Department of Retirement Systems indicate that the city opposed April Van Brunt's application for line-of-duty benefits from the outset and hired an outside law firm, at a cost of nearly $40,000, to represent the city.

The city of Seattle is self-insured, and it would have to reimburse the state for the costs of any pension or additional line-of-duty death benefits awarded to Van Brunt's widow.

April and her lawyer McCarty — who handled the case for free — say SPD was helpful at first, but eventually "cut her loose" to navigate the retirement and workers' compensation systems without support. It took years, but April eventually prevailed, winning special law enforcement benefits from the state Department of Retirement Services in 2020, a workers' compensation pension in 2022 (retroactive to 2019) and special line-of-duty death benefits just last year.

And, on Friday, the Seattle Police Department honored Van Brunt's service and his family's sacrifice with the ceremony.

In an interview from her home this week, April Van Brunt called the moment bittersweet.

"It's sad that it's taken this long, but we are thankful and grateful that he will finally be recognized with this honor," she said. "It is nice to see him recognized as the hero he was."

Mental health and law enforcement

Interim Chief Barnes announced the memorial in a departmentwide email earlier this week and took the opportunity to remind officers that the job's dangers aren't always as obvious as armed suspects or car chases.

"The tragic end of Bryan's life underscores the critical importance of mental health awareness within the law enforcement community," Barnes wrote. "We need to care for ourselves, and one another, and recognize when the stress, anxiety, and trauma feels insurmountable."

"Detective Bryan Van Brunt dedicated his life to serving and protecting all of us. His commitment to public safety and his unwavering dedication to duty made our community a safer place," Barnes wrote. "We will always remember his bravery, sacrifice, and the countless lives he touched with his service."

April Van Brunt does not question the sincerity but wonders where the department was during the years the city attorney's office fought having her husband's mental collapse and suicide attributed to post-traumatic stress resulting from his years working undercover. Instead, April Van Brunt said, attorneys representing the city "tried to come after me, blame our marriage."

City Attorney Ann Davison, in a prepared statement, said she was "constrained by confidentiality laws" from discussing the case except to say her office represents the city human resources and workers' compensation departments.

"Ultimately, after collaborating with the family's attorney, a resolution was reached that resulted in the payment of benefits," she said. "I offer my deepest sympathy to Mr. Van Brunt's family for their tragic loss."

In a statement Wednesday, Seattle police spokesperson Sgt. Patrick Michaud said the department "has been supporting the family" through the state administrative processes, and that SPD considers Van Brunt's death "to be causally related, at least in part, to the ongoing exposure to often extreme trauma that comes with this line of work."

A highly skilled undercover officer

At the time of his death, Van Brunt had just come out from more than five years working undercover as part of a joint federal-local task force investigating white supremacists, domestic terrorism, illegal gambling, public corruption, illegal firearms and drugs, according to April Van Brunt and McCarty.

In a statement Friday, the Seattle office of the FBI praised Van Brunt as a "highly skilled undercover officer" whose "contributions were crucial to investigations involving some of the FBI's highest priority threats, including both criminal and domestic terrorism matters."

"The tragedy of his death is a stark reminder" of both the physical and emotional dangers encountered by law enforcement officers, particularly those working undercover, the statement said.

April Van Brunt said her husband kept his emotions close and rarely talked about his work, but it was obviously dangerous and difficult.

"There was one point when he had five open undercover operations, some in other states," April Van Brunt said. "He would be traveling from state to state, going from persona to persona, meeting and hanging out with the most awful individuals you can imagine.

"Think about that. That's five undercover phones on all the time, plus two work phones. It was not conducive to home life. Our marriage suffered. There was no nine-to-five. It was almost impossible for him."

More than once, she said, her family was placed under police protection due to her husband's assignments.

However, when he died, she said, his funeral in Snohomish County was not held with police honors. No flag was presented to the widow. There was no honor guard.

McCarty — who was there — said there was a SWAT team outside to protect the guests, and no photographs were allowed to protect the identities of some of the other officers and agents who attended.

On Friday, his friends and former fellow officers said Van Brunt's investigation saved lives. During one FBI-led operation, he infiltrated a white supremacist group in Kansas that was planning to bomb a mosque.

McCarty said Van Brunt had told him that, when arrests were made, he made sure his Black sergeant put the handcuffs on the ringleader.

Another of Van Brunt's undercover operations was detailed in a May 2011 article in the alternative newspaper The Stranger titled "The Long Con," which describes a two-year undercover investigation by Van Brunt — posing as a moneyed activist — into illegal gambling, public corruption and drugs.

April Van Brunt hopes that her husband's death will spur others in law enforcement, particularly its leaders, to stop and think about the pressures of the job and the bad tendency to push through the trauma, rather than address it.

"There's all this training for when they go undercover or work these jobs. They teach them tactics and techniques and how to shoot and all this stuff," she said. "The only thing they don't teach them is how to come out and come home. They don't teach that."

Editor's note: This story references suicide. If you or a loved one is in crisis, resources are available here.

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