Police need to know what's behind the emergency

Police need to know what's behind the emergency

When police respond to calls from citizens for help, they need to know what they're getting into. If they do not understand the 911 call involves a veteran, opportunities are lost and things could go from bad to worse.

There is a lot of great work being done in several states to educate law enforcement about the unique circumstances involving veterans. It is especially important for every state to be able to deal with the combat veterans considering National Guards and Reservists are being used as much as they are. There are veteran's courts being set up so that veterans dealing with the ravages of combat are treated properly instead of being sent to jail for crimes with the extenuating circumstances behind what they are being accused of. Here are several different scenarios based on news accounts and actual events in order to explain how snap decisions can destroy a golden opportunity to help a veteran.

It's 3:00 am.
You arrive at a house responding to a call about domestic violence.
The wife opens the door crying. She's in her pajamas. Her eye is swollen. There is blood on her night shirt from a nose bleed.
Three children are sitting on the floor, all of them crying.
Husband sits on the sofa, hands over his face as he rocks back and forth. He appears to be in shock.
As you look across the living room, it appears to be a very nice house with pictures hanging on the wall.
The wife says "He kept bunching me!" She wants him arrested.
What do you do?

You are on patrol on a street and notice a car weaving, slowing down without a clear reason.
You follow the car for several minute as the driving becomes more erratic.
Trash barrels line the street and he hits one of them.
You pull the car over.
The driver seems as if he is disorientated.
You do not smell alcohol on his breath.
You suspect drugs because his eyes are glazed.
You ask him if he's on drugs and he says no. He will not look you in the eye.
He opens his wallet to hand you his drivers licence.
You see other cards in his wallet as he fumbles to select the licence.
When you call to see if there are any warrants on the vehicle, you return to the car and he is shaking.
What do you do?

In the first case, the husband is a National Guardsman. There was a picture of him in uniform taken in Iraq. He served in Iraq in some of the worst fighting. He has been dealing with PTSD but does not know what it is. It was one more night of a violent nightmare. The wife was getting aggravated because of the frequency of being woken up in the middle of the night by her husband. Her patience was gone. She yelled at him to wake up and he responded by hitting her three times in the face before he realized where he was and what he was doing. The wife didn't know what PTSD was. She had no clue what was going on with her husband after he got home several months before.

In the second case, it is a Marine veteran who became a civilian. He was having a flashback with the trash barrels lining the street and was trying to avoid being near them. He was re-experiencing a road in Iraq where a bomb had blown up some of his friends. As he opened his wallet, there was a VA hospital identification card he almost handed you instead of his drivers license.

When people make assumptions, they tend to leave it at what they are thinking. A lot of veterans have ended up in jail because no one knew what the veteran was going through. These men and women were willing to give up their lives for the sake of the nation but ended up in jail because of what they went through doing so.

If you, as a police officer are aware of PTSD and what comes with it, you would have known to ask the wife more questions. Use your skills of observations to access the situation. You don't have to make a diagnosis but you should be aware that there is more there than seems obvious.

The wife and the veteran are dealing with what comes after war all too often. Even police officers and firefighters exposed to horrific situations can develop PTSD. Knowing what it is saves lives. If you simply arrest someone and no one asks what was behind the attack in the case of the domestic violence call, there could be a combat veteran put into jail instead of helped to heal. Take your suspicions and have the veteran diagnosed so that if it is PTSD, he is helped and not arrested. The same thing with the driver you suspect of being on drugs, when clearly he is not. It won't be clear to you unless you again use your skills.

There are older veterans suddenly experiencing PTSD because of changes in their lives. Most of them have lived out their days with mild PTSD but as they get older, other traumatic events occur in their lives, it comes on them with a vengeance. It's PTSD on steroids.

There are regular civilians who develop PTSD from traffic accidents, natural disasters, violence and crimes. If you are aware of what you're dealing with, you will not only keep a wounded person out of jail, you will be of great service to the community.

As time goes by, more and more people are becoming aware of what PTSD is but it takes years before people understand what it is. All too often the veteran finds himself in jail, loosing their license to drive or having an arrest on their record when they were suffering instead of just being guilty.

The more the law enforcement community becomes aware of what comes home after trauma, the better the veteran will be served.

Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos
International Fellowship of Chaplains
Namguardianangel@aol.com
http://www.namguardianangel.org/
http://www.woundedtimes.blogspot.com/
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington