0:01

Hey Super Podcast fans, it's

0:03

Yardley. I just wanted to pop in

0:05

with a quick announcement about Small Town

0:07

Dicks Season 12. It drops on

0:10

April 21st. April 21st, mark

0:12

your calendars. We will see

0:14

you there.

0:21

ACAS powers the world's best podcast.

0:25

Here's a show that we recommend.

0:28

Hey, it's Mark Maron and on my podcast,

0:30

WTF, I've been talking to famous people in my

0:33

garage since 2009. Comedians,

0:36

actors, writers, directors, and even a

0:38

president and recently pro wrestlers.

0:40

Isn't it my understanding that guys like you eventually

0:43

get schooled? What are you talking about? Me?

0:46

How could I possibly be schooled? I'm the smartest man in professional

0:48

wrestling. I thought I'd be dead by 26, because

0:50

of the way I was acting. So just to have that moment

0:53

and I'm facing right across the ring from a guy

0:55

who I idolized, I'm like, this is trippy. That

0:57

drama and

0:58

that reaction, that's what wrestling is for

1:00

me. It's creating the story to get people

1:02

to go, ah, this is great. Go check out WTF

1:05

episode 1408 with wrestlers

1:08

from AEW. Listen and subscribe

1:10

wherever you get your podcasts and get

1:12

new episodes twice a week.

1:19

You know, I've always classified

1:21

my PTSD as an injury. It's

1:24

a wound that I'm trying to heal. If

1:26

I'm not able to care for that wound, it's not

1:29

going to get better. I was really

1:31

good at compartmentalizing everything until

1:34

the day I wasn't good at it. I

1:36

do believe within law enforcement is you have

1:38

to introduce this as

1:41

a fact. You will be

1:43

impacted psychologically by this

1:45

job.

1:46

These are the resources available to you to help

1:48

you cope and heal from

1:50

what you're going to experience.

1:56

and police stations across the country.

2:00

start their shifts in the briefing room.

2:02

It's a place where law enforcement can speak openly

2:05

and candidly about safety, training,

2:07

policy, crime trends, and more.

2:10

We think it's time to invite you in, so

2:12

pull up a chair. Welcome to

2:15

the briefing room. In

2:29

today's briefing, three detectives,

2:32

three stories of personal trauma. It's

2:35

time for law enforcement to address the issue

2:37

of trauma response. This

2:39

is one of the main topics I consider when it

2:41

comes to discussions about police reform.

2:44

In this episode, we'll discuss what first

2:46

responders are experiencing now and

2:49

avenues to seek help. To

2:51

do that effectively, I needed

2:53

some first responders to talk to, and I'm

2:55

pleased to be joined by my co-hosts on Small

2:57

Town Dicks, my brother Dan, Good

3:00

afternoon, and Mr. Paul Holes.

3:02

Are you there? Each has been candid about

3:04

their experiences, and they've graciously

3:07

shared the challenges they face when trying to cope

3:09

with the nastiness of the job. I

3:11

also realize I'm not the most emotionally

3:14

intelligent or emotionally available

3:17

person on the planet. So

3:19

we brought in our secret weapon, the

3:21

incomparable Yardley Smith. Good

3:24

afternoon, sir. Yardley's

3:26

made it a mission since day one to

3:28

knock down the walls and break

3:29

down the barriers with our guest detectives

3:32

and really find out information

3:35

and thoughts and emotions they

3:37

never thought they would share on a podcast. Yardley's

3:41

got a gift.

3:42

I'll also note quickly, this is the final

3:45

episode of the Briefing Room Season 1. There

3:47

will be a Season 2, so keep an eye out

3:50

for more information.

3:57

This is like Fight Club though, you don't talk about

3:59

Fyke. So in law enforcement

4:01

community, you don't talk about your

4:04

reaction to traumatic circumstances.

4:08

There's

4:08

a cultural hurdle that

4:10

police officers, first responders have

4:13

to get over that I

4:15

don't think people recognize. If

4:17

an officer comes forward to command

4:19

staff and says, listen, I'm having some issues,

4:22

and it's not that I blew out my knee,

4:24

hop in a fence, it's

4:27

this is bothering me and I'm having sleepless nights nights

4:29

or I'm drinking too much. The

4:32

initial reaction is, oh, this

4:34

person's crazy. We need to take their gun and badge. Or

4:36

at least that's the fear of a police officer

4:38

comes forward and says, things are bothering me.

4:41

The police culture makes it where we're

4:43

not incentivized to come forward

4:45

with that kind of information about ourselves.

4:48

It's supposed to suck it up, move on to the next case,

4:50

and deal with it when you retire.

4:53

We should just pause for a second for anybody who

4:55

hasn't actually listened to small-town dicks. You

4:58

have to investigate sex crimes and child abuse.

5:00

And a lot of what you had to do on that job,

5:03

if you found, for instance, child

5:05

pornography on somebody's computer, you had to

5:07

watch every file. These are things

5:09

you cannot unsee.

5:11

It's not like you just hit play and let

5:13

it run, and then you move on to the next one. It's really

5:15

a critical review of each video,

5:18

from a 10-second video to a

5:21

video that's 29 minutes long. You

5:23

have to stop, rewind 30

5:26

seconds, let's rewatch that again. I'm trying

5:28

to pick up what I can hear in the background.

5:31

Anything that might lend itself

5:34

to finding who this guy is that's

5:36

victimizing this child.

5:38

And I can't overstate

5:41

the brutality of what

5:43

you see in a video of an

5:45

infant being raped. And

5:47

when you watch hundreds of those

5:50

for weeks on end, it

5:53

fucked me up. How could it not? And

5:57

there's this culture of if I

5:59

come for and say, hey, I'm

6:02

a shit show right now.

6:03

My head's not in the game. You open

6:05

yourself up as an officer to a

6:08

fitness for duty, psychological evaluation,

6:11

the stigma of all your coworkers

6:15

going, there's crazy Dave going

6:17

down the street. He can't get his head

6:19

right.

6:20

I don't wanna be on a call with him. You

6:22

open yourself up by self-reporting,

6:25

hey, I'm having issues, to all

6:27

these negative consequences that don't

6:30

aid themselves to you making it to your retirement.

6:33

Instead, it feels more like shame

6:35

because there's no obvious physical

6:37

injury that required stitches or an x-ray.

6:40

It's really tough to get over that and accept,

6:43

I'm a little jacked up. And honestly,

6:45

that's why I'm out of law enforcement. I

6:48

had a few cases that knocked

6:51

me out of the job and it is

6:53

what it is. But I truly

6:55

felt and let my command staff know like,

6:57

hey, my head's not in the game right now because I'm

7:01

sleeping an hour or two a night. I'm

7:03

having nightmares. I can't sleep. I

7:05

wake up covered in sweat. I

7:08

can't eat. I'm drinking

7:10

too much. All these things that

7:13

if you come to your command staff and let them know, they're going

7:15

to be like, whoop, let's get him to

7:17

a shrink real quick.

7:18

Right, and take him off duty. Right.

7:22

The incentive is, well, I'm not going to come forward

7:24

with that. Everyone's gonna think I'm crazy and then I'm gonna

7:26

be on admin leave. There's a huge

7:28

stigma with being on admin leave.

7:31

So you don't report it, but

7:33

then years later you have this cumulative

7:36

stress that finally breaks you, which

7:38

is what happened to me.

7:40

To me, I've always classified

7:42

my PTSD as an injury. It's

7:45

a wound that I'm trying to heal, right?

7:48

So if I'm not able

7:50

to care for that wound, it's not going to get better.

7:53

So you've got officers that are dealing

7:55

with things, but they're supposed to repress and compartmentalize.

7:59

So.

8:00

The most important thing is we have to change the culture.

8:02

We have to de-stigmatize

8:05

officers coming forward and being able to communicate

8:07

that they're having issues. And

8:10

if we don't do that, we're doing a huge

8:12

disservice to the people who work for these

8:14

agencies. When I think

8:17

back over my

8:19

entire career, I can't

8:21

think of ever being involved in

8:23

a discussion where we're talking about

8:26

this type of trauma that everybody's experiencing.

8:29

It's not something that has been freely talked about

8:31

whether within law enforcement or

8:34

whether it be within the media even, you

8:36

know And that's where now it's

8:38

push it out. You know, it's okay to talk

8:40

about it. It's okay to acknowledge that yes This

8:43

has an impact on you

8:45

one of the reasons we started the briefing room was

8:47

there are conversations to be had within law

8:50

enforcement that aren't

8:53

Happening for various reasons

8:55

and certainly in this case with mental health as

8:57

you said dave we don't

8:59

talk about Fight Club.

9:00

Right, so

9:03

dealing with that back then was

9:05

shove it in the box. You just figure

9:07

out how do I get through this? Well,

9:10

I had a lapse in the middle of reviewing

9:13

this evidence. I had a physical

9:16

reaction to a video I was

9:18

watching. I slammed down my headphones.

9:21

I got up, I dropped a few F bombs and

9:23

some GDs. And Dan

9:25

was across the way and saw it. And he's like, I

9:27

mean, my heart's racing right

9:29

now thinking about me standing

9:32

up from that computer screen of what

9:34

I was watching. And I was worried,

9:37

like,

9:37

oh shit, how many people just

9:39

witnessed me having this reaction to what I'm watching?

9:42

I mean, I was flipping mad,

9:44

like angry. And I was

9:47

really worried about that. So

9:49

very quickly, I covered right back

9:52

up, like, I'm good, I'm good. Just

9:54

this video bothered me, but I'm fine. In

9:56

truth, I didn't sleep for weeks after

9:59

that.

9:59

Get a. an hour here, an hour there, you

10:02

start drinking so you can pass

10:04

out basically. And that's

10:06

not a healthy way of handling things. If we

10:08

had had an agency structure

10:10

where I could safely go

10:13

report that to somebody, that would have been very

10:15

helpful for me.

10:16

I don't know that I would have utilized it at

10:18

the time because I

10:20

would have felt like I was being weak and I can't handle

10:22

the job that I signed up for. So

10:25

there's these battling

10:27

conflicting aspects to

10:29

what you're doing

10:30

and

10:31

nobody in our job is incentivized

10:33

to self-report and say, hey, I want to go through

10:36

the whole psychological eval situation.

10:39

Please sign me up for that. You're

10:40

like, no, I don't want to do that. I'm going

10:43

to get shamed and I'm going to have to give up my gun and my badge.

10:46

You know, there is an expectation that

10:49

you will be able to manage every

10:51

situation no matter how horrific

10:53

it is and

10:55

not be Impacted

10:57

by that, you know behaviorally emotionally

11:00

psychologically and it seems like

11:02

an open secret that Everybody

11:05

knows of course this will affect you because how could

11:07

it not because you're human beings, you

11:09

know Dan often says we're people too

11:11

and what you all do on the job the bar

11:14

is set much higher for you because

11:16

there's potentially so much at stake

11:18

every time you encounter someone out on the street

11:21

or in their home. And I know you all

11:23

accept that and you appreciate it, but it

11:25

doesn't mean that that kind of responsibility

11:28

comes without a price. How could it?

11:31

And like everybody acknowledges it's gonna fuck

11:33

you up, but nobody wants to actually

11:35

help you with that. That's an important

11:37

point that you make there. Human beings

11:40

are fallible, we're not perfect, And

11:43

we all deal with

11:44

trauma and stress differently. Everybody

11:47

does. And if you don't

11:49

provide us with tools or an environment

11:52

that fosters

11:54

the ability to communicate,

11:56

to express that you're having trouble,

11:58

then... What are you asking

12:00

for? This job is such that

12:03

there's no way to prepare yourself. There's

12:05

no way in an interview I can drill

12:08

down and figure out how this person,

12:10

this candidate, who wants to be hired

12:13

as a police officer, how they're gonna react the first time

12:15

they see a dead baby. How

12:17

they're gonna react the first time they see body

12:19

parts all over a highway because a

12:21

pedestrian got hit by a car and then

12:24

drug hundreds of yards.

12:26

There's no way to determine that. I wish there

12:28

was.

12:29

I would have been able to recognize some of my

12:31

weaknesses. Truly, I have

12:34

no way to describe walking

12:36

up

12:37

on a dismembered body. I've

12:39

seen people pass out at crime scenes

12:42

from being overwhelmed.

12:44

A brand new officer saw,

12:46

responded to a suicide of a child that

12:49

used a gun and

12:51

that officer left that call. He

12:53

was brand new,

12:54

went directly to his supervisor and said,

12:57

That I cannot handle. And

13:00

I'm done. I'm done being a police officer?

13:02

Resigned. And good on that officer.

13:05

This guy was a Marine.

13:07

And I have great respect for

13:09

him saying, I've dealt with all this shit,

13:11

but that, I've got a similarly

13:14

aged daughter that I cannot deal

13:16

with. And he said, this

13:19

job's not for me. I have great

13:21

respect for that. Great respect.

13:24

I was really good at compartmentalizing everything

13:28

until the day I wasn't good at it.

13:30

As I think back, you know, I went through

13:33

the academy back in 1994 and I don't recall

13:38

there ever being any type

13:41

of lesson that was given

13:43

to the students in the academy where

13:46

there is a discussion about these types

13:48

of things or what you're going to be dealing with in

13:51

this profession and they are

13:53

going to impact you.

13:55

Imagine us in our 20s sitting

13:57

around the table. are totally

13:59

different. people in our 20s, there's

14:02

no way we would be open to

14:04

talk about the impact of

14:06

the cases we're having on us. As we've gotten

14:08

older, more mature, and this trauma

14:10

has piled up, what I have

14:13

found is that I'm much more willing

14:15

to discuss, you know, how

14:17

the career has impacted me. We've

14:19

had conversations, and we can sit

14:21

around and really open up about, you

14:24

know, how it is, but you're 20-somethings,

14:26

you're not. And so part of the culture change,

14:28

I do believe within law enforcement is you

14:30

have to introduce this

14:33

as a fact. You will

14:36

be

14:36

impacted psychologically by

14:38

this job. These are the resources available

14:40

to you to help you cope and heal

14:43

from what you're going to experience. And

14:45

I think if it's introduced early

14:48

within, you know, the training aspect

14:51

or the hiring process on the civilian

14:53

side, now you have people who might

14:55

be a little bit more accepting

14:57

that oh yeah, okay, everybody

14:59

here is aware that this is a real

15:01

deal in this career.

15:03

And it's not just even the sworn

15:06

officers that are subjected

15:08

to this culture. I can tell that

15:11

famous movie, Silence of the Lambs, you know,

15:13

and Jodie Foster passed the vix

15:15

to put underneath her upper lip in

15:17

order to mask the smell. Well,

15:20

my mindset was, oh, she's weak, you

15:22

know, because here I am doing the job

15:24

for real. If I were to put Vicks on

15:26

my upper lip because of the smell,

15:29

it's a sign of weakness. That's my

15:31

job. And so even

15:34

in the civilian world, it's

15:36

not just the officers, it's the CSIs,

15:39

it's the death investigators, it's the dispatchers,

15:41

it's the attorneys that are dealing with these cases.

15:43

You know, the term you use, this

15:46

is not natural for people

15:48

to have to deal with this day in and day out.

15:50

Yes. You know, I consider

15:52

fire emergency room staff,

15:55

medical staff, I consider DAs

15:58

and defense attorneys have to look.

16:00

at the evidence that we look at and, you know,

16:02

at my desk, eventually it's going to land on

16:04

the DA and the defense attorney. They're going to have

16:06

to review this. I consider all of them to be

16:09

parties. They're impacted by this, our

16:11

evidence technicians. Anybody

16:13

who reads the report, I mean,

16:15

the report I wrote on this child sex

16:17

abuse material, child porn case was 20

16:21

pages long. And our

16:24

records folks go through that and make sure

16:26

that the data entry is all correct and that I

16:28

have crossed my T's and dotted my

16:30

I's,

16:31

they got to read that too.

16:32

And that's the job.

16:33

And I was fine with it until I wasn't.

16:52

After Chris Kilcullen's shooting, I

16:55

was told that I needed to go speak to

16:57

a therapist.

17:00

And I spoke

17:02

to that therapist and started talking about the

17:05

events of that day and how it was affecting me. And

17:08

the look on her face

17:10

was, I'm

17:11

in over my head. I don't know

17:13

if I'm gonna be able to help this guy. So

17:18

there's always that. We talk

17:20

about all the time, A lot of the

17:22

success of your case being

17:24

investigated is predicated

17:27

on who you get as the officer who's investigating

17:29

it. I think the same way with a therapist, you

17:31

have to find the right person. I

17:34

was mandated to go to this single

17:36

person and speak to them, and

17:38

it didn't really help at all.

17:40

The most help that I got was when I went to

17:42

a peer counseling group

17:44

of people who were in law

17:46

enforcement, dispatchers, SWAT

17:48

officers, patrol officers, detectives

17:51

who have all been part of critical incidents.

17:54

and

17:55

I gave them my experience and

17:58

I didn't feel... alone anymore.

18:01

And it was really powerful for me. Speaking

18:05

of my own personal experience, I

18:08

recognize that I needed help many,

18:10

many months before I ever sought

18:12

help. And it was probably

18:14

years.

18:16

If I'm honest with myself, it was right away

18:18

after I started these bad habits, I went, this

18:20

is not sustainable. How am I going

18:22

to continue

18:24

at this pace for

18:27

years?

18:27

That was even before you retired. Well,

18:30

before I retired.

18:32

I think about my situation and

18:35

I missed a year of work because

18:37

of my brain, my head.

18:39

I was in my own head. And

18:43

I recognized at that time, I should not be

18:45

working. I was a liability

18:48

to myself and the officers I was

18:50

working with. I was making really bad

18:52

unsafe decisions and it wasn't intentional.

18:55

It was for a lack of focus. and

18:57

it wasn't complacency, I was making simple

19:00

mistakes. And I had to recognize

19:02

like, I'm not in a good space here. So

19:05

I just did it. And I went,

19:07

consequences be damned. If this is my

19:09

last day in law enforcement, it is what it is. But

19:12

I had to be honest with myself.

19:14

When I finally let my department

19:16

know like, hey, I'm jacked up right now,

19:19

and I'm not asking you for time off,

19:21

I'm telling you I need time off. And

19:24

doing the paperwork, you have to fill

19:26

out the date of the injury.

19:29

And I went, actually,

19:31

I know this.

19:33

I know exactly when I started

19:35

having these problems.

19:36

And that was the day that you stood up from your desk and

19:38

threw down your headphones and. Right, I

19:41

remembered going, I know it's

19:43

this case and I know exactly which video

19:46

out of the 240 something videos

19:48

that I watched, I knew exactly which video it

19:50

was and at which point in time

19:52

in that video where I like

19:55

literally, you know, when you just feel flushed

19:57

and you have a physiological

19:59

reaction.

20:00

I remember everything

20:02

about it.

20:03

And the first eval I

20:05

ever got was not favorable to me and

20:08

ignored a lot of things that

20:10

I had said. And I remember getting this report

20:12

going, I suffer from general

20:15

anxiety. That's the diagnosis. Are

20:17

you kidding me?

20:18

So then I went to a law enforcement specific

20:21

forensic psychologist who was like, oh,

20:23

this is textbook law enforcement, cumulative

20:26

PTSD. Like there's no doubt.

20:28

My therapist was awesome.

20:32

And she had very little

20:34

experience working with first responders, but we

20:36

hit it off. And I trusted her implicitly.

20:39

She was great. She got things out of me. I thought

20:41

I'd never reveal to anybody.

20:43

And there are cases that

20:46

I

20:46

haven't thought about for years

20:48

that are now popping up and replacing the cases

20:50

that have bothered me for years.

20:52

And so I just said, is this like the

20:55

disc cleanup on your computer

20:57

where you're like, let's run the defragmentation

21:00

program and clean this all up. Oh,

21:02

remember this? Like going through an old box

21:04

of memories.

21:05

And I says, is this my body trying to like

21:07

reconcile all the shit? I'm trying

21:10

to be able to live with this. And she's like,

21:12

yeah,

21:13

first responders deal with that all the time.

21:15

And I was like, okay, I wish

21:19

I had gone years earlier. I wouldn't

21:21

have ended up where I ended up in this

21:23

career at year 15. I

21:25

would have been able to sustain that for another 10 or 15 years.

21:29

They've got very fortunate in finding

21:31

somebody that he trusted quickly.

21:36

That's a big thing with us cops. We don't trust

21:38

people. I know that. Right? So

21:40

you have to talk to somebody that you trust.

21:43

And for me, it was talking

21:45

to my peers.

21:46

That was a lot of help. I mean, that

21:49

really underscores that

21:51

the right people have to be the resources

21:54

that get developed to help

21:56

law enforcement has to be the right

21:58

resources. type of people.

22:01

When I went to my therapist, and it was after

22:03

I retired, and this is a therapist

22:06

out in Colorado Springs, you know, she's dealing

22:08

with, you know, military guys, special

22:10

forces, you know, of course, both acute and

22:12

chronic type of trauma. But as

22:15

I'm talking to her about what I'm experiencing,

22:17

where I'm cratering emotionally over

22:20

things that normally would never have bothered me, and

22:22

I start telling her what I had done

22:24

during my career, what I had seen and experienced,

22:27

and of course, compartmentalized all of it.

22:30

And she told me, well, every time

22:32

you had that type of incident, it

22:34

was like a little nick. And by itself,

22:37

you could handle it. But

22:38

now I've got so many nicks

22:41

after doing it for 30 years. She

22:43

goes, you're bleeding out. And

22:46

just like what you experience, that's what I experience.

22:48

Now I'm in my 50s. And everything

22:50

from the past adds up. I can't talk

22:53

about certain cases without breaking

22:55

down.

22:56

10 years ago, I could. It's just something

22:58

that has been shoved inside of me, and

23:01

now it's wanting to come out. Yes.

23:04

As a person who's been

23:06

in therapy for many years and really believe

23:08

in it, I can say there's frustration,

23:10

even on my end, of how complex and

23:12

nuanced the process of teasing

23:15

apart the things that hold you

23:17

back or keep you up at night is. And

23:20

because it's so individual, I think people

23:22

often feel overwhelmed and don't even know where

23:24

to begin. and that can keep them from

23:26

taking any action at all.

23:29

So

23:30

cops have to be honest with themselves and

23:32

do a real

23:34

self-check-in about where they're

23:36

at and whether or not they feel like they're healthy,

23:40

coping appropriately, those

23:42

types of things. And command

23:45

staff, police departments, and human

23:47

resource departments in cities

23:50

and sheriff's offices across the country

23:54

can say that they support

23:56

mental health and treatment

23:58

for traumatic. responses

24:01

for first responders. It's

24:03

easy to say that.

24:05

Are you doing it in practice? Do you make

24:07

it easy on the officer

24:10

who lets his command staff

24:12

know, I'm having some issues and I

24:14

think, mental health days are well

24:17

recognized nowadays.

24:19

In law enforcement, they're not. You're expected

24:21

to show up and do the work. So

24:23

these

24:24

cities really have to take care

24:26

of their people and they have to be open to allowing

24:29

their officers to feel safe coming

24:31

and saying, I need a few days to get my shit

24:33

together. And that is not happening,

24:36

at least in the departments that I've

24:38

had experiences with, it's

24:41

all lip service from the city. They

24:44

don't

24:45

truly support

24:46

effective trauma response for

24:48

their officers. In theory, they

24:51

love it, but it means they're gonna

24:53

have to pay a bill. And that's

24:55

where I've been

24:57

extremely unimpressed with

25:00

actual follow through.

25:02

Again, I'll stress, I have

25:04

great love for the agency I worked for

25:06

and the people who work there. I

25:09

am not impressed with city management.

25:13

When you say make it easy, it's not just

25:15

about provide the resource, pay for the resource,

25:17

but

25:18

make sure that you don't cast a pall

25:21

of shame over the person who is

25:23

willing to come to you and say, I need

25:25

to get my shit straight. And

25:28

that requires a level of trust

25:31

on the part of command staff to

25:33

say, I trust

25:36

Detective Dave when he says he

25:38

needs to get his shit straight, that he's gonna go and do

25:40

that. Might not happen in one fell swoop,

25:42

but I'm gonna support this journey

25:45

because it's important to all of us.

25:47

Absolutely. My experiences

25:50

aside,

25:50

I know anecdotally, officers

25:53

don't feel like it's safe to come forward and say

25:55

I'm struggling. I don't know

25:57

of a department where officers feel like it's

25:59

a safe. place for them to go

26:01

and say, hey, I'm having a problem.

26:03

I don't know of any department that's like that. I

26:06

can speak for myself personally,

26:08

our agency, they've

26:11

been in the press about, hey, we've got this

26:13

peer counseling team. We really

26:15

want to take care of our officers. And I

26:18

truly believe that. This is an organization that

26:20

I gave 15 years of my life to. I'm very loyal

26:22

to this organization, to the agency.

26:26

That's all fine and dandy. my

26:28

old police department is not its own entity.

26:30

It belongs to the city government. And

26:33

you have human resources and city

26:36

managers and those offices who

26:38

maybe don't have the same concern

26:41

for their first responders

26:43

that work for their city. That's great that

26:45

your agency has this trauma

26:48

response team that can come help out police

26:50

officers, first responders. But

26:52

if the city doesn't back up

26:54

the agency, it doesn't mean

26:57

anything. I think that cities

26:59

and municipalities and counties, whatever

27:02

these agencies are, are opening themselves

27:04

up to liability.

27:06

So if I'm out on the street and I'm dealing with stressful

27:08

calls and everything, and I'm not at 100%,

27:12

if I'm not able to perform my job at 100% because

27:15

of this injury, PTSD

27:17

is an injury, right? So

27:20

if I make a mistake, I think that's

27:22

part of the responsibility of the agency

27:24

that they work for. And you do see

27:27

that, like what Dan was bringing up about the liability

27:29

standpoint. This is where now you get the

27:32

risk management components of

27:34

the county city level governments, where

27:36

they are assessing, okay, what is

27:39

the risk to the

27:41

government, in terms of financial

27:44

risks, possibly operational

27:47

risks. And so they try to mitigate

27:49

that, even with like,

27:52

let's say physical ailments. We

27:54

used to have the list within the sheriff's office.

27:57

And if you have people showing up on that list,

27:59

that don't...

28:00

have that objective diagnosis.

28:02

They've got the broken arm, but now

28:04

it's this psychologist

28:07

has said, this person is struggling

28:09

and comes up with a psychological

28:12

diagnosis. How is

28:14

law

28:15

enforcement management going to be handling that?

28:17

But also how is the city

28:19

or county level governments going to perceive

28:22

what is really going on in that person? They're

28:25

going to say, we want our own doctor, our own

28:27

psychologist to evaluate it. And

28:29

then that psychologist, it's now it's like competing

28:32

experts in court, right? You probably get

28:34

a completely different diagnosis because

28:37

the psychological aspect, there

28:39

is a subjectivity to it. And it's so

28:41

easy to say this or that

28:43

without anybody being able to point to

28:45

objective information and saying,

28:47

this person is having an issue based on

28:49

the trauma they've experienced on the job.

28:52

I find it interesting that you have

28:55

officers that are human beings

28:57

and that we humanize the badge that

28:59

officers are caring and compassionate

29:02

and everything, but then you have a city that

29:04

wants you to be a robot.

29:05

Or sort of a hero complex

29:08

too, like Superman doesn't need any, you

29:10

know, mental health counseling. Yeah, you

29:13

can't have it both ways. No. I

29:15

was recently made aware of a department

29:18

that appears to be pretty progressive in terms

29:20

of having a mechanism for

29:23

their staff to get the help that

29:25

they need without all of a sudden

29:27

being ostracized, both at the

29:30

command staff level who are aware that that employee

29:32

needs help, but also making it a

29:35

confidential process. And

29:37

that's part of the, you know, the

29:39

concern is, is that it's not

29:41

only how you are perceived with

29:43

your coworkers,

29:45

but let's say the courts

29:47

find out you've got a defense attorney who gets

29:49

ahold of that information, you know, is

29:52

that going to be treated like, oh, this This might

29:54

be Brady type of stuff. Right.

29:56

Is this officer impeachable now? Yes. and

29:59

that

30:00

has to be completely containerized in

30:02

order to allow the

30:05

law enforcement staff, both

30:08

the sworn as well as the civilians out there to

30:11

feel

30:12

I can do this. It's not going to impact my

30:14

job. It's not going to impact my reputation

30:17

with what I have to do for my job.

30:20

Well, and here's the other thing to consider is

30:23

on the prosecution side,

30:26

Paul mentions a potential

30:28

Brady issue, Like, is this person reliable

30:31

and are they competent?

30:35

And that's the definition of Brady in law

30:37

enforcement. It's about lying. It's

30:39

about lying and honesty and exculpatory

30:41

information. But if the detective

30:44

who worked the case, a defense attorney finds

30:46

out that six months after the case, the

30:48

detective went on a two

30:51

week sick leave, and it was

30:53

due to stress and anxiety,

30:56

more of a mental health issue. Does

30:58

the defense, if they're going to go there, do they have

31:00

to let the prosecutor know in advance?

31:03

And does the prosecutor have to proactively

31:06

get out in front of that and say,

31:08

by the way, detective, we got trial coming up. Have you

31:10

had any mental health evals lately that

31:13

I need to forward to the defense for

31:16

discovery? I wouldn't feel comfortable

31:18

with that.

31:19

I mean, I don't even want my own family

31:21

to read my psych eval, much less a defense attorney.

31:25

Is it relevant information? It could be.

31:28

You talk about HIPAA laws

31:30

and how HIPAA laws really

31:32

apply to normal everyday

31:34

citizens. And just for anybody

31:36

who doesn't live in the US, you might not know what HIPAA

31:39

is. It's privacy laws

31:41

concerning- Medical. Medical,

31:44

which includes mental health. Right.

31:46

I know that there are lots of cities out

31:49

there and jurisdictions that have their

31:51

own wellness programs under

31:53

their umbrella. If I

31:55

was an officer,

31:56

knowing that there may be a direct line of communication

31:59

or some sort of.

32:00

that I'm dealing with something

32:02

and my city can find out about that. I

32:05

might not trust that.

32:07

I might wanna build in a couple layers of

32:10

security for me and go maybe

32:12

even to another city and

32:15

speak to somebody there. I

32:18

think that's something that we need to consider. Now,

32:20

Paul brought up a great point.

32:22

If a defense attorney gets ahold of some information

32:25

like that

32:26

and asks you about that while you're on the

32:28

stand, Is he violating a HIPAA

32:30

law? Sure, and even

32:32

if, let's say the defense attorney asks

32:35

you about it on the stand, and

32:38

the judge says, hey, you

32:41

can't do that. You can't, you

32:43

can't unsay the information now the

32:45

jury has it, even if you instruct them

32:47

to disregard it.

32:49

Absolutely.

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34:08

Is there any relief in, now

34:10

that you're all retired and hopefully

34:13

feels though you have an opportunity to

34:15

process some of these things that you compartmentalized,

34:18

you thought so well, not so well by

34:20

the way, nor should you. Is

34:23

there any relief in being able to work

34:26

through it?

34:26

I think we're able to work through it because

34:29

we're not worried about the stigma anymore. Right.

34:32

And it affecting our job

34:34

security. I think that's why

34:36

I feel like I can talk about it because

34:38

I don't have to worry about getting fired for

34:40

it.

34:40

It's never too late, but it's too late.

34:43

You should have those opportunities on

34:45

the job. Like you can't ask an athlete

34:48

to play a professional sport and then

34:50

not do whatever you need to do,

34:52

eat well, train, get massages,

34:55

whatever you need to do to rebuild, so we perform

34:57

the best we possibly can at the next game.

34:59

When I played professional baseball, Dave.

35:04

Fuck you. When

35:08

I played baseball, I mean, part of every

35:10

day for me was going

35:12

into the trainer's room and getting treatment for

35:15

little bumps and bruises and my

35:17

arm was sore and that's part

35:19

of it. And you have to treat human beings, especially

35:22

police officers and first responders, you have

35:24

to treat them the same.

35:26

What do you think is the probability

35:28

that people on your various police

35:31

forces will take advantage of those

35:33

programs?

35:34

Like we have this program, sure

35:37

make use of the program, but there's still no guarantee

35:39

that there won't be stigma and shame

35:41

attached to employee, you

35:43

know, police officers, first responders,

35:46

making use of those programs.

35:48

Like drug addiction, you

35:50

can't force the help on the

35:53

first responder. they've got to be ready

35:56

to accept the help.

35:58

And like I said, at the time that

36:00

that

36:00

I really had this impactful

36:02

case,

36:03

I wasn't prepared to step forward and ask

36:05

for help.

36:06

Like Paul said, if it was ingrained into

36:08

me from day one, that, hey,

36:11

just like writing reports, this is also

36:13

a

36:14

part, a component of your job, I

36:16

would have felt a lot more comfortable.

36:18

So I would have been like, oh, we've got a department

36:20

for that, or I've got a supervisor I can go to

36:23

for that. So gentlemen, what

36:25

would you suggest to a first responder out

36:28

there who's struggling with trauma,

36:30

what advice would you have for them?

36:33

My advice, any police officer

36:35

who is going, all right, I'm listening

36:37

to this episode, I'm gonna make the call.

36:40

All I did

36:41

was went on Google

36:43

and said, I did a Google

36:45

search on therapists, trauma

36:48

response, first

36:50

responders near me. And

36:53

it was just three phrases and

36:57

up popped, you know,

36:58

hundreds of listings

37:00

of counselors in my area. And

37:03

I went through about 15 profiles. I

37:05

emailed a couple and just said, hey, here's the

37:07

types of stuff. Here's the type of stuff I'm

37:09

gonna be talking about. I just wanna give you a warning in

37:12

case you're not comfortable, if in

37:14

case that's too much for you. And

37:16

I found accounts, one therapist

37:18

who said, yeah, that's not really my bag.

37:21

And I had another therapist who

37:23

I ended up with who said, I don't

37:26

know what the answer is to that, but

37:28

I want to find out with you how much

37:30

she could handle. And she's

37:32

a pro and

37:35

that's all I did. I got on Google and

37:37

I looked for the right fit

37:39

and I had a little discussion. It

37:41

could be that simple. Lots of police

37:43

unions have clauses

37:46

in their contract about mental health and

37:50

counseling services. You

37:52

can look and if you're a first responder, look

37:55

into your collective bargaining agreement. contact

37:58

your union rep and ask go

38:01

through the scenario. Hey, I'm having some issues. I'd

38:03

like to get some confidential help with this

38:05

so it doesn't impact my career or

38:07

my standing. But here's

38:10

what I'm dealing with. You gotta find

38:12

trusted folks and departments

38:15

really have

38:17

to realize that the landscape has

38:19

changed and you're either on

38:21

board or you're just going through

38:23

the motions. Are

38:25

there any specific organizations?

38:28

I know we did an episode several years ago with

38:31

one of the founders and Kevin Pollack

38:33

as well on CoverNow, which

38:36

provides help for first

38:38

responder families, law enforcement

38:41

families I suppose mostly, when

38:43

the breadwinner has been killed

38:45

in the line of duty.

38:46

CoverNow's primary focus is to

38:49

help families of officers

38:51

that have committed suicide or have suffered catastrophic

38:53

injuries and can no longer work.

38:57

It turns out that if

38:59

an officer has been killed in the line of

39:01

duty, there's plenty of resources for the

39:03

families on that front. So CoverNow has been, they're

39:05

saying there's nothing out there for these

39:08

situations, suicide and catastrophic

39:10

injuries.

39:11

So obviously the goal is to get involved

39:14

and there to be some sort of intervention

39:17

before we get to that point. So

39:19

there are resources out there. There's

39:22

a, it's a nonprofit

39:24

called Copline, C-O-P-L-I-N-E.

39:29

It's for international law enforcement

39:31

and it's cops talking to cops. So

39:34

you can call them, the hotline is 1-800-COPLINE

39:37

or

39:39

1-800-267-5463, you can call them. Like

39:44

I said, it's international law enforcement. It's not just

39:46

US law enforcement. We've talked to law enforcement

39:48

in Australia and Ireland and Scotland,

39:51

call somebody.

39:53

That's the hardest thing to do is that first step

39:55

to call someone and I think this is an easy

39:57

way for you to maybe.

40:00

start navigating that

40:02

road. You

40:05

guys are, I just can't say enough about

40:10

how meaningful it is that you're willing to

40:12

be honest

40:12

with, you

40:15

know, we have hundreds

40:18

of thousands of listeners and

40:20

that you are willing to bear

40:22

your souls in this way in hopes

40:25

that it will help somebody else.

40:27

It just speaks to all of your character and

40:30

thank you. Appreciate

40:32

that. Yeah, absolutely. I hope

40:34

this can help one officer.

40:36

Exactly. And it's worth it to me.

40:39

This will be an ongoing discussion on the briefing

40:41

room.

40:41

I think it should be. I think it's that

40:43

important. And I think to your point,

40:45

Dan, if it can help one

40:47

person, one first responder, whatever

40:49

department they're in, that

40:52

is an extraordinary win on

40:55

top of all of you being so

40:57

honest and sharing with our

40:59

listeners what it's really like behind the scenes

41:02

in your hearts and minds.

41:08

So this wraps up season one of

41:11

The Briefing Room. For me,

41:13

it's been rewarding to give

41:16

our listeners kind of a behind the scenes

41:18

look at law enforcement.

41:21

I hope this show gives listeners answers

41:23

to questions they maybe never had or

41:25

questions they had and never got the answer

41:27

to. That's what we want the show to be.

41:30

These are the conversations that we

41:33

feel still need to be had. So

41:35

thank you, and we can't wait

41:38

for you to join

41:38

us

41:39

back on season two of The Briefing

41:41

Room. The

41:48

Briefing Room is produced by Gary Scott

41:50

and me, Yardley Smith, and co-produced

41:53

by detectives Dan and Dave.

41:56

This episode was edited by Logan

41:58

Heftel, Soren Beige, and

42:00

Christina Bracamontes, Chris

42:02

Ray, Gary Scott, and me.

42:05

Our associate producers are Erin Gaynor

42:07

and TheRealNixMiddy. Our social

42:10

media is run by the one and

42:12

only Monica Scott. Our researcher

42:14

is Delaney Britt Brewer. Our music

42:17

is composed by Logan Heftel, and

42:19

our books are cooked and cats wrangled by

42:22

Ben Cornwell. If you like what you

42:24

hear and wanna stay up to date with the podcast,

42:27

please visit us on our website at

42:30

smalltowndix.com

42:32

slash The Briefing Room. Thank

42:35

you to Speech Docs for providing transcripts,

42:38

and thank you to you, the best fans

42:40

in the pod universe, for listening. Honestly,

42:43

nobody's better than you.