Posts Tagged ‘police psychology’

Police Psychology: Tragedy in LAS VEGAS

Posted: October 9, 2017 in Stories
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TRAGEDY IN LAS VEGAS

by Keith Bettinger

from Las Vegas, NV   keithbett@cox.net

It is Tuesday October 3. I spent part of the day in the parking lot opposite the Mandalay Bay hotel helping my friends in the Fraternal Order of Police feed and hydrate the first responders working at the murder scene.  Police officers are working twelve hour shifts, yet they are friendly and professional.  They never pass up a chance to thank us for coming to help them.  It was also the day I found out the lady I was trying to locate the night before, is one of the fatalities. (more…)

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Pre-employment Psychological Screening for Cops

Posted: October 4, 2017 in Tests
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Pre-employment Psychological Screening for Cops

by Ellen Kirschman, Ph.D.

I’ve been a police psychologist for thirty years; counseling, teaching, giving workshops, and writing books, both fiction and non-fiction.  In my first book, Burying Ben, my fictional alter-ego, Dr. Dot Meyerhoff, deals with a rookie Ben Gomez who kills himself and leaves a note blaming her (not a spoiler, you find this out on page one).  She wonders how her ex-husband, who did Ben’s psych testing, ever found him suitable to be a cop. And why he didn’t uncover Ben’s many lies?  This is fiction. Or is it? (more…)

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Police Psychology: The Folly of Fear

Posted: September 26, 2017 in Mastering Emotions
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This is a PTSD technique used by a colleague of mine from Detroit, Michigan using a work of art from Francisco Goya found in Museo del Prado in Spain.  I have seen this work of art live a couple of times in Madrid and never would have made the connection LaMaurice did:

Police Psychology:  The Folly of Fear

 LaMaurice H. Gardner, Psy.D.

This is a picture called the Folly of Fear. Now in the background of the picture (in the past) you can see Spanish soldiers engaged in combat. They are beside the tree fighting for their lives. You can see the front of a cannon just to the left of the left most figure. They are at war.

 Now, in the foreground of the picture (in the present) you can see these same Spanish soldiers. What are they being confronted by? What is that standing over them?

 “A Ghost.” (grim reaper, death, etc.)

 Yes. And what is a Ghost…. a Ghost is a memory from the past. (more…)

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Police Psychology: Why Protests Occur?

Posted: September 21, 2017 in Mastering Emotions
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Police Psychology:  Why Protests Occur?

by Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.  ABPP

 

The past few days there was rioting in St. Louis.  It may have started as a protest but moved quickly to a riot.  Riot [RAHY uh t} – a violent disturbance of the peace by a crowd.  The subject was a judge’s decision of not-guilty for a cop that shot the driver of a car who led the cop on a high-speed chase.  “He killed him because he was black!”  “The gun in the back seat of the car wasn’t his.”  A $900,000 settlement was made with the family by the city prior to the trial.  The officer had said we’re going to “kill this motherfucker” on the car cam prior to the stop.  The driver had all the marking of being a heroin dealer and had some drugs in the car.  The judge just didn’t see evidence beyond a reasonable doubt for the cop being called a murderer.

At Georgia Tech University, a campus cop shot and killed a student who was wielding a knife and refused to drop it.  Cops say she went closer and closer to the officers yelling “kill me.” The cop eventually shot her.  This was after a 9-1-1 call when someone complained about an intoxicated person with a weapon.  The female student was non-binary (identifying with neither sex) and had attempted suicide earlier.  Protests are under way at this writing. (more…)

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Police Psychology: Choir Practice

Posted: September 13, 2017 in Mastering Change
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Police Psychology:  Choir Practice

by Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.  ABPP

 

In 1975, Joseph Wambaugh named it, when a group of cops go out after their shift for nights of drinking, camaraderie and debauchery.  They would get drunk, be obnoxious to regular citizens and have sex with a variety of barmaids, hookers and naïve young girls wanting to have a good time.  During the day, they would shoot gays in the park and bond together so nobody could get the real story and no cop could get charged.  Their pranks on each other are so appalling and dangerous that Joseph Wambaugh actually had his name taken off the film.  Superiors are all jerks, judges are listed as “black-robed pussies.”  It was called a “film about brutes for brutes.”  But the book and movie actually started something that is quoted frequently today, and perhaps is part of the way the public views cops. (more…)

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