Eric Weaver

Eric Weaver is a leading expert, advocate, speaker, and instructor on mental health issues, specializing in law enforcement. His passion for preventing and de-stigmatizing mental illness, trauma and suicide is grounded in his own life experiences. Diagnosed and hospitalized with severe mental illness, six of those times while serving as a police sergeant, he has shared his story with over 35,000 law enforcement officers and other emergency services personnel across the country.

Founder of the training and consulting company, Overcoming the Darkness LLC, Eric leads his team in areas such as recovery, mental illness, stigmas, communication and de-escalation skills, and suicide awareness, prevention, and intervention. As former Commanding Officer of the first Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) in New York State, he developed and implemented a forward-thinking approach to crisis intervention, which has served as a model for numerous law enforcement agencies. He continues to serve as a consultant, developer, and lead trainer for law enforcement agencies on police intervention and response to those experiencing a mental health crisis.

Prior to that assignment, he worked in numerous patrol assignments, the Tactical Unit, SWAT team, and Internal Affairs with the Rochester New York Police Department (RPD) where he retired as sergeant after 20 years of service. After retirement, while still training on the issues of mental illness and suicide intervention, Eric served the Executive and Counseling Pastor of Crosswinds Wesleyan Church in Upstate New York.

He has collaborated with numerous advocacy groups to shine the light on mental illness and suicide. He is currently a consultant with the National Council for Behavioral Health, and he trains and has helped develop curriculum for the internationally recognized Mental Health First Aid for Public Safety programs. Eric also previously served as Area Director and Chair of the Board of Directors for the Western New York Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP).

His work has earned numerous awards from organizations such as the Mental Health Association of NYS and National Association of Social Workers. He has been featured nationally in WebMD, TIME, Details, and Reader’s Digest, and FBI National Academy Magazine, as well as various news publications and television programs.