Watch this section for timely features and hot off the wires news about law enforcement and police stress, general mental health care, medical discoveries, health, nutrition, legislation related to law enforcement, health insurance, managed care... you name it. If it's in the news and it may effect you, I'll try to write something about it here. I also will occassionally indulge in what I will no doubt convince myself is outrageous commentary and editorializing.
2/12/98: Sgt. Paul Hardy Subdues Hostage Taker in His Own Home
2/11/98: Exercise - No More excuses.
2/1/98: What Pres. Clinton should have learned from his former Surgeon General?
May 28, 1998: Some thoughts about teen killer Kip Kinkel smuggling a knife into the police station.
Commentary, June 27, 1998
In writing about police stress, I tend to focus on the most prevalent forms, including critical incidents, and have yet to write about the police stress we all know about but comparatively few of us have experienced. Call them hyper-critical incidents if you want: the violent deliberate death of a partner or colleague or spouse. I was reminded of the fact that I needed to address this today reading about the probable assassination of an international top cop, Poland's former police chief, Marek Papala, who at the age of 38 was about to assume a position in Brussels fighting international organized crime.
Papala was gunned down in a ritzy district in Warsaw, killed apparently by a single shot from a gun with a silencer. Somewhere crime bosses are lifting their glasses of vodka in a toast to what they will write off as a simple business expense, a clean hit bought and paid for; while throughout Poland and around Europe police officers and good citizens alike must be mourning the loss of a good cop. And lamenting, too, the loss of a round in the battle against crime.
The Internet gives those of us in the west a chance to send our condolences to brothers and sisters on the job in the rest of the world. Perhaps it takes a high profile police death to remind us that there are countries where violent death contributes to more police stress than it does here. In countries like Columbia and Poland, it has been virtual open season on cops and law enforcement officials. In Poland, eleven officers were killed on duty in 1997 alone and thirty-six were seriously injured, out of 508 attacks on police.
When a police officer is killed in the line of duty, here or anywhere, the grief moves outwards from those closest to him (or her) to those who only knew "of him" to those who only learned "about him" after his death. Grief isn't the same as police stress, but mourning the loss of a loved one, friend, or colleague killed in the line of duty is complicated by the rage at the killer. Assuming he is apprehended, no punishment "feels" good enough, and even the death penalty when it is finally carried out ten years later, doesn't ease the pain of the loss. Worse still, is when the killer isn't caught. Seeking peer or professional police counseling during periods of grief can help you sort out your feelings, which can be overwhelming when sadness is mixed with anger.
June 9, 1998: Supreme Court ruling about searches. One of the underlying causes of police stress is the love and hate relationship police officers have to live with in their day-to-day interactions with the public. The fact that anyone worthy of being called a citizen wants the police to aggressively pursue and arrest criminals and respond to accidents is tempered against their mixed feelings about the routine traffic patrol work that is most likely to put them at odds with the police. They don't see that part of "to protect and serve" includes keeping our highways safe. In fact, with the exception of people with a general anti-authority attitude, just about everyone has an attitude that the police are okay unless they are after me... for whatever: from speeding to drunk driving to soliciting prostitution to possession of marijuana to violations of domestic restraining orders. If the average citizen that falls into this category would learn to respect the police and accept their role as enforcers of all the laws, there would be less of a bunker mentality within law enforcement and hence less police stress. As things stand now, it often seems that the only people that appreciate the police are those closely affiliated with the criminal justice system.
Thus, it was with pleasure that I read today that the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision (it would have been nice if it was unanimous) extended the scope of the gun law in drug cases. The cases (Muscarello v. U.S. and Cleveland v. U.S. for those of you studying for the next promotion exam; the former case involved a loaded gun in the glove compartment, the later case, three loaded guns in the trunk). These convictions originally added five years to the sentence but were appealed because they involved drug traffickers arrested with guns in their cars but not immediately accessible.
Previously, Federal appeals courts had disagreed on the interpretation of the Federal statute adding five years to the sentence of anyone convicted of a drug crime who carried a gun. The ambiguity of the term "carry" was in question. As you know, there are levels of risk you cope with (all adding to police stress), and while a gun in a glove compartment or trunk isn't an immediate danger to you; the fact that the perp knows it's there and you don't gives him an edge.
The defense attorneys focused on the aspect of punishment and adding to the population of overcrowded prisons. They argued that it was not the intent of Congress to increase sentences for those who weren't carrying guns on their person where the weapons posed an obvious danger to others or suggested an intent to use the guns for intimidation. This ignores the important aspect of our laws which is to send a message to criminals that if they chose to arm themselves in any way, shape, or form, they will serve more time if and hopefully when they get caught.
The outspoken president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, Gerald Lefcourt, said that the decision "ignores the plain language of the statute, the clear intention of Congress and the multitude of laws already available to punish drug dealers." He just doesn't get it. The point isn't whether we have a lot of laws just to punish drug dealers. The point is that as the seriousness of the criminal activity increases, so should the punishment. If it is a crime for a drug dealer to carry a gun in his glove compartment or car trunk, that crime should be added to his charges and he should be sentenced accordingly. Lefcourt also states that the law would now do nothing more than "add to our already overflowing prisons." He just doesn't get it. The Supreme Court's role isn't to consider whether a judgment will add to prison overcrowding.
It is decisions like these that you should applaud and view as winning one for the good guys. The fewer bad guys that have guns on or around them, the safer it is for you. You can't ever let your guard down. Obviously, every glove compartment opened by anyone but you represents a one or two second "edge" the bad guy has over you if there's a gun inside unless your gun is already drawn and "in his ear". Frankly, I wish citizens would have their registrations and licenses already out by the time I got to the vehicle. I never like those guys who seem to be rooting around in stuffed glove compartments try to "find" their paperwork.
I know it isn't the Court's job to lessen police stress. But, hey folks, it is their job to do everything possible to decrease the risk to police officers and to send a message to criminals that if they have guns they have escalated the level of their criminal activity.
May 24, 1998: A story in the Boston Globe tucked away on page
eighteen in Sunday's edition, relates to police stress. The headline reads "Detained teenager reportedly attacked
officer with hidden knife."
As we explore police stress we can't ignore how the violent crimes committed
by children can lead police officers to develop a hard cynical shell in
order to cope with the depressing realities they face on the job. The danger
of course is that you bring this emotional armor home or internalize it
to such an extent it makes you less human. By now the coverage of Kip Kinkel
has permeated the media and again violent children has been the focus of
numerous discussions. What do these crimes do to
you, officers as well as others in the criminal justice profession, emotionally,
psychologically and philosophically? And the incident with the hunting knife
to me waves an even brighter red flag than the killings themselves because Kip Kinkel brought that knife into your house. He brought it there when
officers were lulled into complacency even after arresting a somewhat less-than-human
being who had demonstrated a capacity for evil in front of hundreds of witnesses. He got away with it in part I've heard because some officers may have been concerned with violating his civil rights or treating a child inappropriatey.
Legal niceties aside, he was not a mere suspect in anyone's mind. And his age was irrelevant (in point of fact, he will be tried as an adult.) This was
the person that coldly mowed down dozens of his classmates firing over fifty
rounds with an accuracy that assured at least half of them hit someone.
He'd shot some children at point-blank range as well. The incident, if you haven't heard it told as of yet is this. While handcuffed
with his hands behind his back and waiting alone, and apparently unobserved,
in an interview room at the police station, he brought his hands in front
of himself and removed a hunting knife he had taped to his leg. When an
officer returned to the room, Kinkel lunged with the knife in an apparent
attempt to, at least "do great bodily harm". The officer "stepped"
(I assume rapidly) back and fortunately was able to use pepper spray to
subdue and disarm the boy without getting hurt. So there it is. Let's all take some responsibility for the screw-up.
How many of us would have thought to do a thorough body search on a freckle-faced
slightly built fifteen year old boy? A quick pat-down and cuff him. I would
bet ninety percent of you would have gone no further. At least not until
now. Leaving a cuffed murder "suspect" unobserved if only for
a minute in a secure interview room, happens all the time. We assume that "it's our house"
and we're in control. (Not so in fiction, if you saw the season finale of
"Homicide", when a murder "suspect grabbed a pistol out of
a detective's desk drawer and killed two officers.) My focus is police stress, not debating why children are violent. This
is about as bad as it gets. You learn to maintain a relaxed vigilance on
the job, a somewhat less than "yellow alert" status. Ready for
the unexpected but relaxed enough to survive you shift and not go home so
tightly wound you can't unwind without a few drinks. If not personally,
through other's tragic experiences, you learned when to up your alert status
on a traffic stop - these days on anyone but your best friend - for example.
You know that any domestic can be fatal and you know the routine precautions.
You know that kids carry guns, that females can be as dangerous as males.
Stress, stress, and more stress. Now a kid makes us look bad. He not only became a murderer after
giving school authorities and the police only slightly veiled warning of
his dangerousness, but he lulled officers into enough complacency to jeopardize
their own lives in their own house. The clear message has to be sent to
the good citizen who may run afoul of the law. The police must protect themselves
by taking standard protective precautions with virtually everyone (excepting
those you know for a fact to be "friendlies") they deal with in
circumstances which could lead to violence. These precautions should not
be viewed as insulting or as infringements on one's civil liberties. I remember
an elderly couple we stopped some years ago who were very upset because
while my partner talked to the driver I stood (in the proper position) on
the passenger side. These were good people who happened to be speeding,
yet who knew who they were prior to checking them out. They were scared
and then angry at being "surrounded like criminals". But unfortunately
we have to "go by the book" these days when our lives are on the
line more and more from seemingly innocuous or controlled situations. It
would help law enforcement greatly if the public could be educated as to
the reasons police will treat them as "possibly dangerous until proven
otherwise", so the vast majority of people you encounter on the job
won't be frightened or insulted. Law enforcement in general should further
educate citizens on how to handle themselves when encountering the police,
especially on traffic stops by keeping hands in view and not making any
suspicious moves. You are a member of the home front peace keeping force. Your assignment
is dangerous. You knew this when you signed on. The rules are changing.
No longer can you heed the advice of the veterans when you come on as a
rookie to throw away what you learned at the academy and become street smart.
Now the academy actually teaches you to become street smart. And some of
the supposedly street smart veterans have become too lackadaisical. I have
no idea who didn't think to do a thorough pat-down of Kip Kinkel, but it
could have been any of us. Thank God no officers were killed as a result.
May 12, 1998: Police officers succumb to police stress as manifest in heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular disease twice as frequently as civilians accoding to a study just published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (by Warren D. Franke at the University of Iowa, et al). The study was conducted with 232 retired male police officers in Iowa, all over 55 years old, mostly state troopers. These retired officers were compared with 817 male residents who were the same age but not involved in law enforcement.
When other risk factors such as high cholesterol and smoking were ruled out the results were even more appalling, with police stress accounting for 2.34 times inreased risk of suffering from these stress related cardiovascular diseases. The authors obviously can't pinpoint the exact reasons police work causes such physical deterioration, but they speculate that shift work and poor diet may be factors. Of course, the very nature of patrol work with periods of relative inactivity punctuated by intense, sometimes life threatening, activity, is also a well known aspect of police stress which common sense would suggest has a fairly direct effect on human physiology.
Several states, including Massachusetts, have politically recognized police stress as a causative facotr in cardiovascular disease and have enacted what are sometimes called "Heart Laws". These laws mandate disability coverage whenever a police officer has a heart attack on the simple presumption that it is job related.
May 1, 1998: As I type this I can hear The Today Show in the other room with television types lamenting the fact that the HIV positive man's suicide and (to me at least) more upsetting burning alive of his own dog, was televised live on local news in California. Talk about undoing any sympathy he may have garnered for his message about his mistreatment by an HMO? Kills his dog!
But what is a television station supposed to do? Time delay everything by ten seconds? I'm not even sure the technology is available to do that on t.v. like they can on radio. Besides it wouldn't be "live" then. Katie Couric just mentioned what I was thinking about how much of this started with the O.J. Bronco chase. It really started with more stations getting helicopters and the development of really good telephoto t.v. imaging. Be that as it may, certainly O.J. could have blown his brains out on live t.v. too. I suppose there will be a lot of debate as to whether events which might be upsetting to children and others should be televised live. Debate for debate's sake. To me it's a closed issue. Sh-t happens, and whether it's an accident on the road where passersby, kids included, might see disturbing injuries, or something on live t.v., these are the lessons of life. It is up to mature adults to helps children deal with the hard facts of life.
On another matter, for those of you who read the Newsweek column about Viagra and also read mine, be assured that I wrote that I thought the name Viagra was chosen because "vi" was the first two letters in a lot work masculine words, and "agra" rhymed with Niagara, before I saw or heard this anywhere else. What it probably proves is that indeed this is what the advertising weasels planned when they selected the name.
A C.O. does his job in his own home despite outrageous negligence by a local t.v. station
Hardy was watching television with his twin four year old sons when Austin shot his way into the living room through locked sliding glass doors. For four hours he held Hardy and the boys hostage. During this time, Sgt. Hardy utilized his training and skill as a hostage negotiator and as someone familiar dealing with the mind-set of criminals to keep Austin talking and build a tenuous rapport with him. This eventually led to Austin's agreeing to release the two boys. Shortly afterwards, Hardy jumped the suspect when he glanced away for a moment and wrestled him to the ground, with the entire fight captured on video through the window. Several shots went off from the suspects gun, and Sgt. Hardy was bitten six times. Four officers who had entered from the rear threw a flash grenade and Sgt. Hardy, stunned and temporarily blinded himself, made it through the window and escaped. The police shot Austin in the leg (which I understand can be very painful) and he was taken into custody.
Local television news in the Boston area is as cut-throat and greedy for ratings as in any big city.The NBC affiliate channel seven (WHDH), in it's quest for ratings capitalized on it's "luck" in having cameras on the scene and captured dramatic footage of the eventual showdown, the only good thing about the coverage since so many times the heroism of officers goes unnoticed. But the absolutely irresponsible reporting must be condemned. Early in the reporting they announced that Austin had broken into the home of a correction officer! As "luck" would have it, luck for Austin that is, the television happened to be tuned to channel seven, so not only was he armed with a handgun, thanks to WHDH, he then was armed with important information about his hostage. Not only did the television station broadcast this information, but until the police demanded it cease, they had a helicopter over the scene televising the disposition of the SWAT team around the house.
State Police spokesperson Sgt.Larry Gillis noted that channel seven "crossed over the line in the interest of getting a sensational story. They did more to inflame the situation (endangering the family), than they did to tame the situation. They were broadcasting to the enemy."
I think Sgt. Gillis was being diplomatic. I would say that the station's coverage was recklessly negligent. Here's a case where indeed, there should be a law. Since any law regulating the press would probably be unconstitutional, a code of journalistic conduct should berigorously enforced within the media. And we should boycot stations that are essentially bad citizens.
I know of another instance here in Massachusetts where a correction officer and his two children were held hostage. In this case two inmates escaped from the Bridgewater Correctional Facility and also by chance broke into a C.O.'s home. Unfortunatley the officer had his unifrom out and right off the convicts knew who he was. Fortunately they were armed "only" with knives they got from the kitchen, and didn't have the "smarts" to figure that the officer must have a weapon in the house. In fact, he had a handgun hiden in a locked tool chest which was in plain sight. The outcome was okay, they eventually stole the C.O.'s car and were finally captured.
As we all know, having an edge can make all the difference in a confrontation with a bad guy, and being seen as non-threatening yourself can be all the edge you need. This suggests that we keep any indications of our law enforcement status hidden in our homes and wallets; and teach our families never to let on who we are if there's ever a confrontation like this. But then we have to live our lives, and there is such a thing as being "too paranoid". So officers will use their discretion.
But given that we sometimes can't help it that a bad guy will know you are an officer, when the media provides this information, it is truly an outrage.
For more information online and photographs, click on The Boston Globe Online and enter the keyword: salem. or search the archive for the 2/12/98 paper.
You have to hand it to those Finnish medical researchers for long term health studies. And I'm not just saying this because my wife and her family are all Finns. Their decades long studies of health are extraordinary. Now we have some good news for keeping fit. Reporting this week in The Journal of the American Medical Assoication , a team led by Dr. Urho M Kujala of the University of Helsinki discovered in a nineteen year study of 19,000 people that occassional exercise had tremendous health benefits.
By looking just at 434 sets of twins where one twin had died of natural causes (mostly cancer or heart disease) researchers were able to rule out genetic differences.
By occassional, they meant, taking less than six brisk half hour walks a month. These individuals were 30% less likely to die from any causes than their twins who never exercised. What is amazing is that those who exercized only siz times a month increased their survival over inactive twins to 44%.
Those of you who have made excuses about why you don't exercise, and thus don't exercise at all, should pay heed. Even if you can't get into a regularly scheduled exercise regimen, if you squeeze in a decent half hour of moderate exercise once or twice a week, you'll achieve very worthwhile health benefits.
It's too bad that instead of firing her, President Clinton
didn't get some counseling from her. If he had heeded her
message he wouldn't be in the trouble he is in today.
Putting aside judgement on the "did he or didn't he"
questions" about Monica Lewinsky and Paula Jones, he has
admitted "he did" with Gennifer Flowers. Thus his
reputation has made him vulnerable to accusations, founded
in fact or not.
The fact of the matter is that some men believe that it is
better to commit adultry in order to satisfy their sexual
needs than it is to either work with their wives to improve
their sexual relationship, or to engage in
self-gratification. They still believe that masturbation is
unmanly and affairs prove their sexual prowess. Other men
thrive on the danger and excitment of an illicit
relationship, even when their sexual relationships with
their wives are fine.
Between the stress of the job and the ready availabilty of
women who are ready, willing and able to indulge in a
dalliance with law enforcement officers, tempation is
always there for an officer who is so inclined. You may not
live in the White House surrounded by Secret Service
agents, oposition politicians and a hungry for scandal
press, watching your every move; but you are still in a
relatively high profile job. The revelation or even rumor
of an indiscretion on your part can cost you. You won't get
fired, but you could loose your marriage and your respect
in the community.
If you find there is sexual incompatibility in your
marriage and you're tempted, try to open lines of
communication with your spouse, and get counseling if
necessary. In the meantime, remember the subject of this
commentary. If President Clinton heeded Dr. Elders lessons
he and our country would be in a lot better shape today.
Click on destination below.
Sgt. Paul Hardy Subdues Hostage Taker in His Own Home
Yesterday ex-con and bank robber Chad Austin, 24, led the police on a chase from New Hampshire into Salem, Mass. after robbing a bank. Over a dozen shots were fired between Austin and the police before he crashed into a utility pole and bailed out. He then ran into a house which happened to be the home of Sgt. Paul Hardy, a Correction Officer with the Essex County Sheriff Department.
Exercise - No More excuses
You are visitor since
4/10/98
