QUAD CITIES, Iowa — Michelle Schwarz and her husband were married in August 2022. About five months later, Blake took his own life, never meeting his unborn daughter.
“He took a lot of pride in his job,” Michelle Schwarz said.
Blake was a guard at Thomson federal prison, well-respected and trusted by his peers.
“He was always the person that people came to when they were struggling,” Michelle Schwarz said. “He was always the person that seemed like he had it all together and he would always be the listener to any of his friends that were struggling.”
But Michelle says he also held a lot inside.
“He just seemed like the one who had it all together,” Michelle Schwarz said. “But he was fighting inside a lot of battles and he unfortunately took his own life.”
In the months since, members of the American Federation of Government Workers have surrounded Michelle and her daughter with love and support.
“I don’t know where I would be without the community that gathered around me after Blake died,” Michelle Schwarz said.
Support that led to a $1,000 donation to the Gray Matters Collective , money now targeted for suicide prevention programs.
“We don’t want other people to learn about suicide prevention from suicide itself,” said Haley DeGreve of the Gray Matters Collective. “There’s so much work to be done in this area.”
And it’s work taken up in Congress — where Iowa Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks introduced the Officer Blake Schwarz Suicide Prevention Act. It calls on the Bureau of Prisons to pay for mental health screening for correctional officers. They are seven times more likely to die from suicide than the general population.
“Statistics are just numbers with the tears wiped away,” Michelle Schwarz said.
Michelle is determined her husband’s memory is much more.
“He was a husband, he is a father and I don’t ever want there to be another wife that goes through what I had to go through.”