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from the MetroWest Daily News, Framingham, MA.

Some cops have trouble with trauma

Coming in contact with gruesome murders and fatal car accidents can be traumatic, even for some policemen.

When the victims of such tragedies are tied to schools or businesses, the common practice is to bring in psychologists to offer counseling to grieving students or co-workers.

"Police officers are frequently reluctant to access counseling services available," said Ronnie Hirsh, director of the Peer Support Training Institute in New York.

He said many cops avoid seeking mental or emotional support for "fear of ridicule, fear of job sanctions, fear of headshrinkers in general."

"Informal support is always going on," said Hopkinton Police Chief Thomas Irvin, who added that his staff will conduct a critical-stress management debriefing with the aim of helping officers deal with the recent murder of Rachel Entwistle, 27, and her 9-month-old daughter, Lillian Rose, in Hopkinton.

He said the staff meeting will be held in the next few days, more than a week after the bodies were discovered.

"Doesn’t your gut tell you that’s too long a period to wait?" asked Hal Brown, a licensed social worker from Middleborough who has counseled police officers in dealing with post-traumatic stress syndrome.

"You don’t want the emotions to be buried, you want to let them out as soon as possible," he said, adding that officers can suffer from acute symptoms right after an incident or chronic symptoms years later.

Irvin said the last time his department held such a meeting was in 2002, when Violet Carey, 5, and her sister Iris, 4, were killed in a gas explosion at their Hopkinton home.

"We only have the stress debriefings for the more serious incidents that affect people emotionally," said Irvin, but added he regularly reminds officers that the department offers counseling services.

Experts say one of the biggest hurdles in getting officers to open up with their feelings is having them overcome the perceived expectation, from colleagues and the general public, that they should exhibit nerves of steel, both on and off duty.

"If you are perceived as weak in law enforcement, your colleague might not want to work with you, thinking you might choke up in a critical situation," said Peter Volkmann, a retired police officer who works with the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation in Maryland.

Additionally, he said, "No one wants a scared cop coming to help them when they’re scared."

While psychological support services are not used to their full capacity, what participation does exist, specialists say, is preferable to the traditional coping method.

Raising awareness of occupational stress now begins early on in the career of a police officer, during training at police academies.