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Monday, June 1, 2009

Program helps police, firefighters cope with trauma

"Imagine just lying in bed and you can smell the crime scene 10 years later. Or look in the mirror and see a dead person who isn't there. These are symptoms people really have."

Healing the badge: Program helps police, firefighters cope with trauma
By John Simerman
Contra Costa Times
Posted: 05/31/2009 02:18:35 PM PDT
He smiles now, with earnest, gleaming eyes, but Joseph Banuelos easily recalls standing in his yard two years ago, shooting rounds into the grass and thrusting a gun in his mouth.

A state drug agent who had worked in West Contra Costa, buying undercover on the same Richmond streets where he grew up, Banuelos was arrested twice over a weekend for driving drunk, he said. A year earlier, he had blown a 0.26 on a breathalyzer — more than three times the legal limit.

He had screwed up at work and his days as a law enforcement official would soon end. Worse, the images of past calls haunted him:

Turning a corner and seeing a 16-year-old boy who had shot himself in the head "looking at me, and as God is my witness I thought I heard him say, 'Mom, please help.'"‰"

The bullet that hit a 12-year-old, with Banuelos unable to move as rifle shots flew and the father pleaded for help as the boy bled out in his arms.

That triple murder-suicide in Novato.
go here for more
http://www.mercurynews.com/crime/ci_12490591?nclick_check=1

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