By Dave Smith and Betsy Brantner-Smith
There has always been a lot of discussion and concern regarding post-shooting procedures from an administrative and psychological services standpoint and certainly those are important but perhaps it is time to reevaluate the critical incident based on what we can do as individuals for our fellow officers. One of the sad things noted over the years is how law enforcement seems to “shoot our wounded” by the way we treat officers involved in shootings and other critical incidents.
Minimizing Trauma from the Beginning
How do we do this? Imagine you’ve just been involved in an armed confrontation, you’re unhurt, but while at the scene your firearm is taken away. The same one you just used to save your own life, and not inconsequentially the emotional symbol of your office. So many officers have described that instant as one of the more traumatic things that happens to them; more traumatic than the confrontation itself. This seemingly logical event almost universally leaves them angry at their assailant, at the department, and maybe even at themselves. This matches much of what we know about memory since the emotional response to an incident is often greatly affected by the final sensations and memory of an experience.
One chief that we know goes directly to the scene of each officer involved shooting with two firearms. The one in his own holster is the one he gives to his officer when the officer’s is taken for evidence. This is a powerful symbol of support to help the officer start healing from the trauma of fighting for his or her life! Another friend of ours was allowed to stay on administrative leave until the gun that had saved his life had been returned to him, ready for full duty use. Administrators and investigators must realize the emotional impact of separating the officer from his firearm after an officer involved shooting.
Fear of Separation
Another often ignored problem is the trauma created by a critical incident when officers are put on administrative leave. Fear of separation is a greatly underestimated stressor and once an individual becomes part of the law enforcement fraternity it is terribly stressful to be wrenched from it for whatever reason. Many retirees talk about the stress of suddenly not being part of their department’s culture (this be addressed in later columns) but retirement is something we can prepare for. Sudden separation by incident or trauma is vastly greater and intensely amplified if YOU are a friend or cohort of the officer and fail to reach out to them! Often, we just pretend our brother or sister probably has enough to deal with so we decide not to “bother” them with a phone call, a note, an email. This is frankly just a cop-out (pun intended) and should be avoided at all costs. One of the greatest ways of minimizing the effect of separation is to just reach out and touch the officer involved; you have got to risk caring!
One officer we know described getting home from the hospital after a shooting and finding his voicemail machine full. The tape was a stream of messages from his friends at the department calling to say how glad they were he was going to be okay and if he needed anything just call. He described with glistening eyes how he took the tape out of the machine and now carries it in his shirt pocket at work, a tangible talisman of his friends with him always! The message to us all from this is how strong his friends were to take time to call, leave a message, and risk caring and give him this wonderful gift he keeps with him over his heart.
Treating the Officer as a Victim, not an Offender
We must always remember that the officer in a deadly force encounter is first and foremost the victim of a violent crime. How do we treat citizens who are the victims of attempted murder? Do we separate them from their family and friends? Do we isolate them, interrogate them for hours, treat them as though they did something wrong? Of course not! But that’s how we often treat our own officers. “Hindsight bias” runs rampant in officer involved shootings, everyone knows what the officer “should have done.” We need to instead focus on the facts, celebrate the survival of our officer, and work hard to help the officer, the department, and the community understand why such drastic action was taken in the first place.
Instead of having the officer write their own report, have them interviewed by experienced investigators and have an investigator write the report after the victim officer has reviewed it (see Force Science research findings on this). Report as many facts to the rest of the department as soon as possible, try not to keep people “in the dark;” this just adds to speculation and rumor. When dealing with the press, refer to the officer as “the victim of an attempted homicide,” and refer the offender—whether he is dead or alive—as an “attempted murderer.”
Get appropriate information out to the community as soon as possible. As any good public information officer will tell, you’ve got to “feed the animals.” This means that you have to give the press something or they will come up with their own “facts.” Not all reporters and media outlets are evil, anti-cop entities, and they tend to report more favorably if they are provided with facts that include “someone tried to murder one of our officers so the officer had to respond with deadly force” instead of statements such as “an offender fired at one of our officers and the officer was forced to return fire, killing the victim.” Remember, the officer is a crime victim, not an assailant.
None of this will eliminate the administrative and legal investigations that the officer will face, not to mention the psychological evaluation they will probably have to undergo, but in terms of healing, the “Blue Bandage” of support that we can provide each other is one of the most powerful!
In the post-9/11 research one of the most important findings was the power of traditional healing venues. These include the power of chaplains, priests, ministers, family, and peers.
Remember, the word “peers” means “YOU!”
