Cops getting bad advice on veterans with PTSD

Cops getting bad advice on veterans with PTSD
by Chaplain Kathie
Wounded Times Blog
August 27, 2012

Well, Elspeth Cameron Ritchie at least tried to offer advice in this How Cops Can Best Deal With Vets but it was not really worth reading at all. One point she got right was that if it is a combat veteran with a gun a cop is facing off with they are trained to use them and take the kill shot the same way cops are trained. If they point it, a cop has no way of knowing for sure if it is a veteran, or if they are suffering from combat or anything else other than that second they have to decide to shoot them or not.

It is easy to think about all the cop movies we've seen when the director gets to decide where the bullets go and how many actors pull the trigger but in real life, that doesn't happen and all too often there is really no time to "talk with respect" or say more than "put the weapon down" before that cop has to decide what to do next.

If they are armed with a knife, then a cop could use a taser or shoot their leg if their leg if they are a great shot, or at the hand holding the knife if they're a true marksman but honestly, most cops are trained to aim at the biggest part of the body for two reasons. One, naturally is to stop the assailant, the other is to minimize bullets hitting something or someone else.

If they aim a gun, assume they will shoot at you, so be safe.

I suggest you open up Ritchie's piece in a new window to make this easier to understand. I don't want to complicate things by posting such limited information on what cops really need to know.

1. If you ask them if they are a veteran, you may not always get the real answer. As hard as it is to believe, a lot of combat veterans do not want to share they are veterans because of the attitudes they have faced in the past. You may also end up with a regular civilian saying yes to the "veteran" question assuming you may take it easy on them if you think they are a veteran. Talk to them and try to ask them what's going on first if you have an opportunity to use the training you already had from the police department.

Notice the way they respond to you as much as what they say. If you hear "sir" that's a clue since even under duress, it is an automatic response but again, but not always a clear indication they are a veteran.

How they hold themselves is telling. You can usually spot a Marine right away no matter how long they've been out of the service. Again, you still don't know for sure since they could have been so beaten down by what they came home to, they may look like a very worn down individual. You could also be up against a true criminal so pumped up with his own power, he thinks he deserves respect.

Look for visible clues like short hair cuts but know that always doesn't help since some grow their hair long and some keep it short but then again you also have civilians with different hair style choices. Look for tattoos but not just for a tattoo you need to see what the tattoo is. Most of them have at least one tattoo with a military connection.

If you are in the home, look for clues there like pictures or any kind of military fabric, but there again, that does not always mean they were in the military.

2. Asking about what their MOS was may get you the military code for what it was or something like a cook that may have been in a convoy that was hit by IEDs or even in the Green Zone when it was attacked so that question really won't help you understand their frame of mind either unless the answer is they were in Vietnam, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, Somalia, Turkey, Africa or any other part of the world including the NAVY!

The rest of this piece is pretty much the same. Not worth reading.

I have taken some of the best Crisis Intervention training there is and not one of them had all the answers but the trainers could only give "probabilities" usually not even coming close to what veterans bring to the situation.

Now for the real advice.

If you don't know who you are dealing with, get someone to talk to family or neighbors. Find out as fast as possible if the situation allows. Take it from there asking the usual questions. "Is he on medication?" "Does he use drugs?" "When did he come home?" and the next thing left out of Richie's piece is that the veteran you could be facing off with is a female!

If you ask her or him if there is a buddy you can call, never assume that is a safe question to ask especially if that veteran feels abandoned by the buddies he served with. Never assume contacting anyone up the military food chain would be good considering he/she could have been dishonorably discharged instead of treated for PTSD or sexually assaulted by the person you just offered to call.

If you ask them about calling a family member, it very well may be a family member that set them off in the first place. Most families do not know what they need to know about PTSD. So what if they want their spouse called so they can kill them first and let the cops take them out afterwards?

There are no easy answers that can be summed up in a couple of paragraphs in TIME since the jobs cops have is hard enough but considering a lot of Guardsman are also cops, firefighters, emergency responders and walking around just like everyone else. All you have to do is understand what PTSD does to a combat veteran before you can even begin to know how to do your job as well and as safely as possible.

The rest of us need to keep in mind that a veteran is more likely to harm themselves than someone else so all of us need to understand that by the time a veteran is facing off with a police officer the peaceful ending is not always a guarantee no matter how hard they try to end it differently. Most of the above advice works well when the the cop is not faced to face with an armed individual under any circumstances.

But what do I know since I don't have a PhD?