A year after Sandy Hook mass murder, police officer faces job loss due to PTSD

UPDATE

Newtown Police Chief Withdraws Termination Recommendation
NBC News
Tuesday, Dec 17, 2013

A veteran Newtown police officer who has not returned to work since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School last year is no longer in danger of losing his job.

Newtown Police Chief Michael Kehoe has withdrawn his recommendation to terminate the employment of Patrol Officer Thomas Bean.

"I am hereby withdrawing my request and recommendation for the termination of Officer Thomas Bean," Kehoe wrote in a letter to the Newtown Board of Commissioners on December 5.

On Aug. 9, Kehoe submitted a letter to the board recommending that Bean be fired for not returning to work after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in December 2012.
read more here

Police Officer With PTSD Awaits Departure Talks
Newtown Bee
By Andrew Gorosko
Friday, December 13, 2013

A Newtown police officer who responded to the 12/14 shooting incident at Sandy Hook School, and who has been off work since then due to subsequent post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), said that the town has not yet contacted him to negotiate the terms of his expected departure from the police department.

Officer Thomas Bean, 38, who has been a police officer for the past 13 years, said December 5 that he has received no word on the matter from the town.

Officer Bean has said that the intensity of the 12/14 incident had such an emotional effect on him that he no longer would be able to function as a police officer.

In November, Officer Bean and the Newtown Police Union publicized the officer’s situation in seeking to have the town negotiate with the labor union on the officer’s departure. Officer Bean currently is receiving half-pay from the town while on long-term disability.

Town officials have had nothing to say on the topic, declining comment and terming the issue a personnel matter.

In an August 9 letter to Officer Bean, Police Chief Michael Kehoe wrote, in part, that under the terms of the police department’s rules and regulations, termination of Officer Bean’s employment is warranted and would be recommended to the Police Commission.

The job termination plan stems from the town’s receipt of a May 29 letter from Officer Bean’s physician that stated that he is “permanently and completed disabled from [the] duties of a police officer,” Chief Kehoe wrote.
read more here