Police Psychology | Funeral for a Friend

Posted: September 21, 2015 in Stories
Tags: funeral, police psychology, police stress

Police Psychology | Funeral for a Friend

by Kammie Juzwin

Like many of us, I am sitting here tonight with a heavy heart at the loss of so many police officers in violent altercations, the current culture and attitudes towards our first responders. In my role as a Police Psychologist, I’ve had a really hard string of days emotionally, coming back from yet another conversation with someone in distress about working as “the police”. It’s been like that for almost two weeks. The recent media attention on police deaths is tragic, but there was some degree of insulation as it was “there”. But, it came home on Tuesday 1 September 2015, when an agency local had an officer die in the line of duty. This is about 30 miles north from my department, and many officers I know have personal and professional ties to the officers, department and/or case. I have ties to that department. It has occupied the news here, both in print and on-air. It hit the national news as well. Throughout the days as I’ve had calls from, and had face time, with commissioners, officers, family members and administrators, I’ve come to know their grief, fear, shock and anger.

I turned on the news and saw my officers there. I got to my department as soon as I could, and stayed until I had eyes on my guys when they came off their detail. Silly, I know. I didn’t expect to talk to them then, but somehow needed to see them in person to assure their well-being. I walked through my department and discovered we had several officers there on-scene. I also learned the extent my department of sheepdogs was chomping at the bit to get there and help too. They felt angry they couldn’t rotate in for the others who had worked in brutal conditions in the field all day. They felt like they weren’t supported by their department to go help when help was truly needed. They had been taking calls and texts all day from family, friends and significant others wanting to make sure they were safe. A few teary girlfriends and wives had called and had the “I don’t know if I can do this with you” conversation, which the officers struggled with because of their desire to move closer in to the scene. Their ambivalence was palpable.

I’ve offered support through the Northern Illinois CISM Team, which had a support role there. An aside, I am a proud member of this group, and so proud of the professionals and the services they provide. I tried to support the coordinator the best I could as she tried to set up defusings and map out the longer term debriefing services that would be offered.

I attended the funeral. It was a lot to take in and process. I saw the long lines of the public, the Freedom Riders and military standing roadside, the lines of officers and families’ string into the high school. It was the only place large enough to house the service, and they still had to limit the fire service from attending. They instead stood on the procession route, at attention, waiting to pay their respects.

There were civilian and officer viewing times, with the funeral being set for the time all officers were there. Line after line after line of groups of officers stood waiting. One was at least 100 strong, they came from all over the country, local, state, federal and I saw a few international officers too. I stood within this sea of uniforms, and watched the tears, the shaking shoulders, and stares off into the distance throughout the events. I saw the lines, officer after officer, united by a badge with a singular purpose. I also saw laughter, handshakes and hugs. I heard the word ‘brother’ over and over. I listened to the bag pipes as the casket was moved to the hearse, as people stood at attention, the crowd rapt in silence, with tears sliding down own faces.

The saying “Many Badges, One Family”, observed on several signs along the road, was certainly a truth.

I also rode in the procession the whole 18 miles, which was very emotionally moving and exhausting. It was a privilege. Scores of people, departments and businesses stood at the side of the road. It seemed everything was awash with blue and black ribbons and signs of support. Signs reflected support for him, for the department, and their loss. People were weeping, cheering, holding signs, blowing kisses to the cars as they passed. People were standing at attention, holding their hands over their hearts, waving flags, calling support to each department as we passed. Signs also reflected support for the police in general as well. The retired military stood straight and tall at attention next to an American flag. They, too, were often weeping. One image that sticks in my mind was a solitary standing figure of a young adult who had obvious multiple impairments, attempting to salute, his crooked arms and fingers at his brow, tears just streaming. His thin shoulders were shaking and his sorrow apparent. There were children with blue tears painted on their faces, signs reflecting police as their heroes. I held my composure until near the end when we went under an overpass and it was silent, where the signs, flags and buntings spoke volumes. It was beautiful, profound and so sad.

Since then, the conversations have gotten harder. My heart hurts for the sadness I see on their faces, in their eyes, and hear in their voices. The helplessness I hear at not having a resolution is painful. I hear the fear and apprehension for news they are pretty sure is coming next in the media. There is no good way out of this situation

but only through it.

The longer it is in the media and unresolved, the more contentious it is becoming and the community can barely tolerate the fear they are experiencing while it is still in investigation phase. It is hard to watch, hard to wait and hard to tolerate the speculation. There have been a series of interviews where the undercurrent between the various parties implies the worst about the way the other party is handling some aspect of the case. The community waits, fearful of murders amongst them. How long can this tension and fear last before it becomes anger or disillusionment?

Then as we came into the second week, the tone amongst the officers has shifted from grief, to restless disbelief and apprehension for the worst case scenario. Given their training, they speculate, knowing their own set of facts, their hypotheses, and their tendencies are to resolve the riddle. When we talk, they wonder aloud. Everyone I’ve spoken with knows a little piece of something, and each conversation gives me a piece from their perspective or experience. The speculation is rampant about the events, the details and what happened. The alternative hypotheses abound. Being curious, I so badly want more details to clarify or verify, but know that is not what the purpose of the conversation. It all makes sense, none of it makes sense. It is painful to watch and hear, at the personal officer level, at the larger police culture level, and potentially now, for our society.

Reviewing and trying to make sense of the details they know aside, if I summarized the conversations, they would seem to flow like this:

1. It’s easier to believe it happened when it is somewhere else.

2. Maybe public sentiment will turn the tide, and they will see we bleed too.

3. Sure they love us when they’re scared, sheep always love us when they are scared or feel threatened.

4. What’s wrong with me that I’m thinking this might be a suicide?

5. What if it is a suicide?

6. If it was a suicide, he still deserved the funeral, the memorials, the attention of the community. I will stand by that forever.

7. How can I handle the betrayal if it is? I helped look for those people of interest, I did….., I went to the funeral, I cried, I held my wife’s hand and cried like a baby, and if it is suicide? What about the family? The explorers, especially the ones who went into the profession because of him?

8. The community will blame us, and me personally, for letting them believe that we deserve their support and love. For the spectacle, for the intrusion on the lives, for the fear that was not necessary. The hate will really start, maybe even justifying their (mis)beliefs about our jobs in their society.

9. Why should they trust us? I don’t think I can trust us.

10. If this could be the cause where a guy as squared away as he was could do this, what about the other guys who I look up to, how can I trust them?

11. Who in my department is going to do something like this, so I have to go through this again? Do I have to look at every squared away – “got it all together” guy with skepticism now? I already worry about …..

12. I am embarrassed, angry, bitter, and my wife is besides herself thinking that I’m next.

13. Why bother? They hate me when it’s good, they hate me when it’s bad.

14. I love what this badge stands for, but I don’t know if I can keep the battle up with the war inside and outside.

15. Just tell us the answer of the manner of death, give us the facts, let the community know what it needs to know, the truth. Support them through the same grief, disbelief and anger we feel. If they could only understand we’d feel the same sense of betrayal and anguish they feel.

16. What is this industry going to do about all this? Where is the leadership on the daily level?

17. What about the next LODD? Will the community trust us to catch the person? What if it is me next? Someone I know? If it is a suicide, what will that mean for us? For the community?

18. What about the young guys, the new ones? What about their families? Why should they stay in? People want to kill us, it’s open season on us. We have suicide rates and health problems and hate society back. Why bother? I should just do my time and get out.

19. What will I do when I get out, I’m “the police”, it isn’t what I do, it is who I am.

Cops being cops, the conversations have been pushing towards resolution, and their cynicism and career experience is creating a vast range of possibilities of what really happened in the events that led to his death. At this point, I know much too much, and much too little. It is hard to know what is and is not fact, and everything I’m hearing is plausible. As it is an open investigation, I can’t comment about the specifics as I write this to bring clarity. When they move to the personal impact on themselves, I don’t know how to help them other than listen, validate, support, and remind them of why they started in this profession. I know whatever I do is going to feel to me that I am helpless to stop this tidal wave. If I could just deal with this officer and his death, that would be one thing, but this is about a societal thing that is going to get worse before it gets better. “The Police” will be in the cross-hairs of society as both enemies and protectors, and the scrutiny will get worse for them before it gets better. Each officer I talked with made a statement to me acknowledging this burden they carry. This event was bigger than the death of my brother, it impacted my entire family, and me personally, they seem to say. I sit and absorb this heaviness. How do you respond in any effective way? What is the answer?

Was the death a homicide, accidental or self-inflicted? Once this line of thinking started, my core went from sad and wondering to how to take care of my folks in the larger context of society and what might happen to law enforcement and its officers. I felt defeated. I cried. I had a crisis of faith in mankind. I reached out to others. Our fear for our officers contains commonalities:

1. The community at large, at best, is ambivalent towards its police. The sheep love the police when they are afraid.

2. The police officers I observed were profoundly moved by the outpouring of support for the officer, his family and department by the community.

3. The police officers I observed were profoundly moved by the outpouring of support for the police by the community. This event became more than about one officers’ death; it became a cause for this community to demonstrate support for “the police” as a whole.

4. If it is determined to be anything other than a homicide, this may be a devastating blow to law enforcement as a whole across the nation. They feared they wouldn’t recover, that there was no way to save face.

So here is my “working” approach. I ask how they are doing, to which they always reply “fine”. I smile and nod. I chat, cleverly distracting them (well at least in my mind), about whatever. Eventually the real conversation begins. I try to be the support they need. I also work from the assumption that they are indeed managing and doing what they need to do to be effective in their roles. In the absence of data suggesting otherwise, that is a fair thing to do. An incident, even one as significant as this, may not be a significant incident to the individual, where there may be lasting trauma. People have emotions and reactions to situations. Understanding that is

important. Understanding that this experience does not warrant a FFDE is also important, unless there is indeed evidence for this. A lot of guys “joked” if I was going to send them for a FFDE because they cried at the funeral. I hugged them, and I’m sure they might have preferred the FFDE.

Very often my conversations are about how you can be wrestling with something, and yet be functioning well. You can be sad or angry, and yet not be consumed by it. People can be resilient and manage to be many things at once. The goal is not to absent of emotion or reaction, but to be integrated and adaptive. To maintain one’s humanity, while in a challenging culture and set of demands. There is delineation for them, different than compartmentalization or minimizing. It is our job to observe for when that becomes problematic and blatantly obvious, and intervene accordingly when impairment is obvious.

Another attribute is that they see life beyond a career, where they take their skills and knowledge into another phase of their life. I need to look closer at the literature about rates of accident and injury close to transition periods in their careers. I see this as a major area where we can be helpful. How do we help with transition anticipation and transition for this group?

The most frequently repeated topic is there is a pride in wearing the badge and uniform, that it actually an exemplification of what they believe in their core. The internal locus of control centered in values that are integrated into their identity. This is an important observation in my healthier officers. It is a lifestyle they would lead even if they weren’t officers. For those whose identities are values based, being an officer allows them to live congruently with their values, and they seem to be processing through these events differently than those who don’t present with that set of beliefs. But when the core beliefs and values come under fire, they hurt down to their soul.

One officer said something like this to me today, “this is what we do, we face the things society gives us.” He spoke of weathering the storm, regardless of the animosity, while praying that the support they received as real, that it doesn’t get revoked. Although he has aspirations of life beyond this career, this career allows him the best quality of life he can imagine. After the two weeks we’ve all had, a moment of hope occurred in that second for me. If they can weather it, I’ll be in good company while I try too.

Thank you for allowing me to share these rambling thoughts with you. I appreciate any comments, supportive suggestions and directions to help me help my sheepdogs. I don’t know how to protect them from what might be coming. Sometimes, being a Keeper of the Sheepdogs sucks, but man, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere but there. Peace, Kammie Juzwin

Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.

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Police Psychology | Can You Be a Virtuoso?

Posted: September 16, 2015 in Mastering Effort
Tags: fortitude, police psychology, police stress

Police Psychology | Can You Be a Virtuoso?

Police Officers have noted it way before others and police psychology has to deal with it when they talk to anyone on-the-job. There is a major difference between “rookies” and the cop that has been on the job for awhile. That difference is the same in the rest of the population regardless of what job they work.

In the book The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born, It’s Grown, by Daniel Coyle, he talks about the 10,000 hour rule. In short, he explains how everyone needs 10,000 hours in order to bring oneself to the next level of skill. This is based off of a study done by Anders Ericsson in 1993, in which he studied the amount of practice time young violinists invested into their music. At 40 hours a week, it takes roughly 5 years in order to gain proficiency, or ten years at 20 hours a week. Others measure acquiring a new “level” in yearly increments: the older you get, the more you grow, mature, and develop, thus assuming more experience and skill. Interestingly cops are constantly saying a cop is still a rookie for around five years before the talent code was ever printed.

Police Psychology | What School Teaches

From the time you start school, you tend to measure advances in schooling and classroom time. You finish five years of elementary school, three years of junior high, then four years of high school, four years of college (although some take longer)…the progression is nearly endless. The hours are long, homework piles up, reports and tests seem never-ending…and yet we all do it. Some of us even continue onto getting higher education in graduate school or medical school. Every year we get burned out, yet went back for more. My daughter is only in 3^rd grade, and she has already announced (approximately 1000 times from June 1^st to June 2^nd) that she has had just about enough of school. Yet she couldn’t wait to get back there after the summer. Remember that thing called summer vacation you used to look forward to all year? Yeah well, I don’t either, let’s go on.

How do you sustain the effort to go that long in any one thing without getting stressed out or burnt out or just plain giving up? How can we sustain the energy of each activity, class, or job throughout the years? Is there something specific that can help keep people going with an energy that parallels the beginning of a new year or a new job? How do you sustain the effort to continue working in business, in policing, in school, or even as a stay-at-home parent?

In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the different things that make people stand out in a crowd. Outliers are people who stand apart from the rest of the group in some way. Most leaders are outliers—there is something about them, something different that makes them unique and exceptional. What does it take to become that special person aside from clocking a certain number of hours for each activity? Is it really enough to expend 10,000 hours doing repetitive and sustained activity in order to make you stand out? If we struggle to get through a day at work, how do you expect yourself to spend 10,000 hours improving just to reach a goal that is so far away?

Police Stress | Fortitude: The Key to Expertise

Essentially, an outlier is someone who has fortitude, mental toughness—grit. Perhaps even fortitude that borders on obsession. The reason fortitude may seem so difficult is because it often involves tolerating a certain degree of discomfort. No one can consider himself or herself brave or courageous or tough if they’ve never faced adversity. Fortitude is congregating your mental and emotional strength in order that you are able to overcome or persist doing something difficult or even undesirable. Everyone experiences moments in which it seems a whole lot easier to give up. Especially today where it seems more and more people feel they have the right and the tools to criticize everything you do or plan to do. How you deal with that criticism will determine the direction of your life. The pot shots and behind-the-scene things that are said about you, are only from very sad people who you can guarantee will never excel at anything. Adversity can harden your resolve, and actually helps you sustain effort. It is actually your best friend to develop an expertise. And you need to see it that way. Adversity is the gift that keeps you from burning out. It is the gift that help you through long hours of practice or the mundaneness of life? Adversity is the gift that gives you the fortitude to sustain effort! Whether you like or believe in Donald Trump and what he is saying or not, people have tuned into his fortitude and resolve and that is why he is leading in the polls at this time. Any effort stimulates adversity. As those of us in police psychology will tell you, the current adversity in law enforcement will help you do a better job. Learn from the resolve you see in others and make yourself become the expert you want to be.

3 Steps for Sustaining Effort

There are a number of strategies you can implement in order to increase your fortitude and thus extend your mental effort. Here are some steps you can use in order to sustain effort enough to be an expert—something most people just don’t do.

Think positive. The first thing you need to do is erase all negative thoughts. When you make exaggerated generalizations about yourself, you are limiting your potential. Saying things like, “I can’t do anything right,” or “I’m worthless,” or “I mess everything up,” can have an extremely detrimental effect on your mental toughness. Practice positive self-talk, or productive self-talk. Replace all your negativistic declarations or judgments about yourself with uplifting, or at least encouraging ones. If you hear yourself moving in this negative direction, stop yourself immediately. You can use the formula I discussed in another blog post: negativity—stop—think. One of the biggest obstacles to sustained effort is the mental blocks inside your own head. Often, the only thing standing in your way is you. If you can remove your own impediment, if you can change the way you think about yourself and your abilities, you will build up a wall inside you that can help you defend yourself from external adversity.
The Marshmallow Test (also known as delayed gratification). A few years ago, some studies were done with children who were given a marshmallow and told they had two choices: they could eat the marshmallow now, or if they waited 15 minutes, they would get an extra marshmallow to eat. They were then left alone in a room for 15 minutes and their activities during that time were recorded. Some children were able to wait and some weren’t. Ultimately, the experimenters concluded delayed gratification was a personal choice: you can choose to forgo your instant gratification for a later date, and in return you will get a bigger reward. People who have the fortitude to become an expert understand this phenomena. Sustaining your effort is not without mental and emotional expense, but this expense is in the short-term. Ultimately, the payoff for delayed gratification is much greater than any superficial benefit you will gain from giving up. If you accept and understand this, you are in a good position to sustain any discomfort you may feel while trying to reach your goal.
Understand your values. Explore your values and hold true to them. Not everyone can become an NFL expert quarterback. Not everyone can get become a doctor. Not everyone can be a world-famous musician. Not everyone can be the #1 mom or dad (because I already have that award). When your values are not in line with your actions, you experience cognitive dissonance. If you take some time to think about what you truly value, you will gain a greater understanding of what activities are worth sustaining effort and overcoming adversity. This is a very personal journey; it will be different for everyone, and only you can know what journey you need to take. When you find the thing you will do, don’t let anyone talk you out of it and spend the time on it. You will become an expert in a few years.

Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.

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Police Psychology | Fit To Be A Cop? How Much Testing is Enough?

Posted: September 14, 2015 in Tests
Tags: police psychology, police stress, testing

POLICE PSYCHOLOGY | FIT TO BE A COP? HOW MUCH PSYCH TESTING IS ENOUGH?

Laurence Miller, PhD

BALTIMORE (Associated Press) — “A psychological firm paid to evaluate troubled Baltimore police, including a lieutenant charged in the killing of Freddie Gray, is under investigation by the city and has been put on probation by the state police for cutting corners in its mental health screenings of officers. An investigation showed that the company’s psychologists were completing evaluations of officers’ mental stability in 15 minutes instead of the 45 minutes required by the state contract. Experts say 15 minutes is far too short to adequately conduct psychological assessments, either for police applicants or officers seeking to return to active duty.” (http://www.aol.com/article/2015/08/06/psych-firm-that-screens-baltimore-cops-under-review/21219038/?icid=maing-grid7%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl2%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D-297775251.)

Reports from my police psychologist colleagues and communications from police officer applicants who feel like they’ve been unfairly bumped from consideration for law enforcement positions suggest that the above story is not an isolated incident. Accordingly, it’s important to appreciate the proper role of psych screenings in the law enforcement hiring process.

Why do a psych screening?

Law enforcement is a high-stress, people-intensive profession. Before a department invests the time and resources in hiring, training, and fielding an officer, it wants to be reasonably sure that officer will be able to perform his or her job, will not pose a risk or danger to the public, and won’t create a liability for the department.

What are they looking for?

Not paragons of mental health, just candidates that are reasonably stable, mature, and responsible. The law enforcement pre-employment psych screening is actually a rather course net designed to catch significant mental disturbance or personality disorder that would be incompatible with the role of a police officer. It is unlikely that an officer candidate with a severe psychotic, mood, personality, or substance abuse disorder would get through this net, but smaller psychological fish, such as erratic mood swings, narcissistic entitlement, under-the-radar alcohol misuse, or extreme prejudicial beliefs, just might wriggle through the meshwork. One common mistake of officer candidates is pretending to be too perfect and then getting bounced for dishonest exaggeration.

What does the exam consist of?

The exact content and procedure of pre-employment screenings can vary widely from agency to agency, but ideally, a competent pre-employment psych screen should contain at least two main elements: (1) a clinical interview; and (2) one or more standardized psychological tests. During the clinical interview, the psychologist asks a range of questions about the candidate’s background, work history, current lifestyle, any symptoms or problems she may be experiencing, and what his expectations are about the job.

A properly conducted law enforcement psychological interview should not feel like an interrogation; in fact, it shouldn’t be any more adversarial than other type of job

interview. The number of psychological tests employed may range from one to a dozen, but typically, between two and four well-standardized measures will be administered. In fact, the typical candidate spends more time hunched over a set of bubble tests with a number-2 pencil in his hand than he spends face-to-face with the psychologist. Another reason for answering questions honestly is that many of these tests have built-in measures for detecting inconsistency and exaggeration.

How are the results determined?

Usually, the examiner will weigh three things: (1) impressions from the clinical interview, (2) the psychometric test results, and (3) the material obtained from a review of the applicant’s past medical, employment, and other records. These factors are then placed into a kind of formula that yields one of several determinations, often expressed in terms of low, medium, or high risk of projected future performance problems on the job. The rationale for these conclusions is provided in the text of a written report that is then sent to the law enforcement agency’s hiring committee for them to consider along with all the other data they use to make the final hiring decision.

Who does these evaluations?

And that’s the crux of the problem. The quality of these assessments is only as good as the training, expertise, and experience of the evaluators. And as the title story indicates, contracts for these services are typically awarded to multi-staffed psychological “assessment centers” (which often do evals for firefighters, paramedics, and other public safety personnel as well as police departments) on a low-bid basis, who then recruit

psychological examiners to work on an independent-contract basis who, in turn, are willing to work on a high-volume, low-fee basis. So now you have the pleasure of knowing that the evaluator who’s making a determinative decision about your entire career got his or her job, not necessarily because of any special credentials or qualifications, but because he or she was the cheapest deal on the block.

Having said that, I know a number of very competent, very professional psychologists who do pre-employment screenings, and usually other types of police psychological work as well. But these are typically independent practitioners, not test-mill employees, and I guarantee they’re not doing their evals in 15 minutes – or even 45 minutes. Realistically, it’s going to take at least a couple of hours to conduct a valid pre-employment psychological screening for any high-level profession, including clinical interview, psych testing, and preparing the report.

Evaluators who cannot competently and ethically offer these services should not be doing this work, and law enforcement agencies who will not pay for valid screenings should not be hiring. The repercussions of sloppy assessments for clinicians is an erosion of trust in the field of psychology on the part of law enforcement personnel. The impact on police agencies may be felt in poorer quality of policing, increased citizen complaints, and higher liability to the department in negligent hiring and retention lawsuits, just one of which can erase the “savings” from retaining a low-bid assessment center many times over. The public expects police to be professionals; police agencies should expect no less from the psychologists who evaluate their personnel.

Laurence Miller, PhD is a clinical, forensic, and police psychologist based in Boca Raton, Florida. He can be reached at docmilphd@aol.com. This article is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide specific clinical or legal advice.

Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.

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Police Psychology | Those Damn Cameras

Posted: September 10, 2015 in Rank and Leadership
Tags: cameras, police psychology, police stress

Police Psychology | Those Damn Cameras

Body cameras are the latest “big thing” in policing, and thus those in the field of police psychology needs to explore how that affects the job. Although people argue that body cameras are a good thing, they can also impose an incredible amount of additional police stress on cops, which can adversely impact their performance.

Those in police psychology need to explore how the advent of technology, specifically cameras, impacts police work.

As a society, we are obsessed with cameras, recordings, pictures, and the like. Many inventions today have to do with capturing the perfect picture , apps are created in which people communicate just through pictures (instagram) or videos (snapchat). In fact, we have even managed to add the word “selfie” into the dictionary. We have become very focused on visuals—on seeing ourselves and other people plastered across the Internet. Perhaps this is in an attempt to make ourselves feel good, to show everyone how pretty, talented or happy we are. Or perhaps it is a way of communicating with other people, a way to seek other people’s approval or admiration, or even advice. It is plain and simply easier and faster to see “a thousand words” rather than write them (my personal belief for the obsession with visuals when I see how bad people write today). Regardless of the reason, the truth remains: we love documenting our lives and ourselves, and we love seeing (or judging) the lives of others. But, in this world of YouTube and vlogs (video blogs in which people document their daily lives and post them on different media platforms) and body cameras on police officers, where do we draw the line?

The Hawthorne Effect

What if everyone wore body cameras all the time? What if your shrink, lawyer, children, parents, teachers, partners, doctors, and dentists wore body cameras throughout all the interactions they have throughout the day? We’d hear doctors showing no empathy at all for some of their patients, lawyers talking about murder fantasies with some of their clients, psychologists imitating some of their patient’s quirks (c’mon you have to have known), and teachers saying things that would suggest you would never let them around your children. Most importantly, how would a video camera cause us to change our daily behavior? ( I, of course, would never imitate my patient’s quirks, “like, you know what I mean, like,” sorry still there)

Camera,, police psychologypolcie psychology

It is understood in police psychology that when you are being observed, you tend to perform more optimally.

In the early 1900’s, The Hawthorne Works electric factory wanted to see if greater light intensity or low light intensity increased work productivity. They hired people to observe the employees as they worked in dim light and bright light to try to determine which setting was most effective. However, they made a surprising observation. They noticed that the workers performed best, not specifically during bright or dim light, but during the length of the experiment. As soon as the experiment ended, their productivity went down. This became the basis for the observer bias, also known as the Hawthorne Effect, where people tend to modify or improve their behavior when they know they are being observed. You’ve probably experienced this one yourself. Has someone you like ever come watch you perform in a sports game or a play? Chances are if you know they’re watching, you run just a little bit faster, you throw just a little bit harder. You perform just a little bit better. The truth is, when we know we’re being watched, we tend to improve our performance, even slightly. We may not even realize we’re doing this. So if everyone wore body cameras, would we all operate a little more…optimally? Would we be more polite, friendlier, nicer, more effective? If you knew someone was watching you, would you stay at the door just a second longer to hold it for the next person? Would you say hi to the people you passed on the street as you walked home or to work? Would you work harder at the office and take less solitaire, bathroom, and phone breaks if you knew your boss was watching? The thought of being watched at all times would probably give many of us pause before we did something questionable, and would probably help encourage us to do something typically we wouldn’t do.

Not so fast with the assumption, Sherlock! If you knew someone was watching your play, wouldn’t you ham it up a little? Yea, most likely you’d get a little more “porky.” We find that in court all the time when people tape their conversations. There is a downside to being constantly recorded. When we watch videos on the news of people attacking others, or reacting with undue aggression in certain situations, we tend to be extremely judgmental. In all the cases of police brutality that have come out, there have been sides and arguments and he-saids and she-saids. The capability to pause, repeat, rewatch—analyze allows us to pick some little minutia and blow that up. When the media does that, it becomes dangerous. Does a police officer have that right in a split second decisions? Police psychology has to look closely at that. We can explore the “he should have” and the “what ifs.” The truth is, this isn’t always possible in real life. There is no pause button in a real life situation. Sometimes aggression is necessary; sometimes it is the only solution, even if it’s not an easy decision. Body cameras, however, can have the adverse effect of adding a bad hesitation to people’s actions. And, while this hesitation may be good for an average citizen who is debating about stealing a chocolate bar from the local store, it is certainly not good for a police officer who is caught between protecting the public and taking down a perp. All these considerations multiply the police stress that those in police psychology need to deal with.

The Double-Edged Sword

If you ever go on YouTube and watch people’s daily vlogs you can get a sense for this type of stress. You hear these vloggers explain anytime they do something they think their viewers won’t approve of, “I’m sorry I’m snacking on this chocolate bar. I was just really hungry and was craving sweets.” I have police officers who say things like, “what happens if I have to go to the bathroom. I can’t go behind the storage place like I used to or stop beside the road.” When we are being observed, we feel the need to make excuses to preempt any possible attacks that can be forthcoming based on our behavior. We do this to protect ourselves, as a defense mechanism for our self-esteem. While this may be good in certain situations, in others it would just give people an excuse to judge us, give us a reason to question our own integrity and ourselves. Body cameras are certainly a double-edged sword—they can be extremely beneficial, and yet they can produce some very unfavorable consequences, negatively impacting police psychology and increasing police stress.

3 Steps to Consider When Told You Will Wear a Body Camera

Nothing Changed – Don’t obsess! Since the days of Rodney King every police officer has known that someone has a camera around the corner and the news will only show a piece of the clip is possible. Do you expect it now to be different? If you work in business, every boss can dial you up on the computer at any time, get a video of you, and criticize what you do. This is the world we now live in. Remember this on any job, there is no more of the sanctity of a private conversation. Even without the camera a lawyer or another party will stretch the truth to win a battle and that may include outright lying. Nothing really had changed when you put the camera right on your body.
Judging is for Beauty Contests – Remember how bad it feels to be judged the next time you are in a position to judge. It is easy to say, but not so easy to do. Keep this in mind, people who are constantly judging others are generally not happy people. And if you are not a judgmental person, it is more likely those around you will not be as judgmental of you, although it is not 100 percent, not even ninety percent, or seventy. People do love their judgments, but reducing your judgments can work to reduce theirs.
Learn to Not Be Defensive – This is another one that is easier said than done. When confronted with the stupidity of others, don’t bother to fuel their fire by defending yourself. Don’t give them further reasons to attack you. Do not respond to an attack with an attack back. “Given the situation and the time I had to make a decision that was an appropriate response.” When they confront you hit them with the broken record “Given the situation and the time I had to make a decision that was an appropriate response.” They will stop if they get no other answer, and any other answer will have them trying to convince you more of how you are an idiot.

Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.

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Police Psychology | The War on Police: “Officer-Directed Violence”

Posted: September 8, 2015 in Public Information Bureau
Tags: officer directed violence, police psychology, police stress

Police Psychology |

The War on Police: “Officer-Directed Violence”

Ron Martinelli, Ph.D., CMI-V, BCFT, CFA

Shannon Miles

Deputy Darren Goforth

Let’s see a show of hands. Every one of you who recognize these names raise em up. Michael Brown? Freddie Grey? OK. Now how about Darren Goforth, Steven Vincent, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu? No hands? That’s not all that surprising to me as a forensic criminologist and police expert.

Unless you have been hiding under a rock for the past year, you would know that Michael Brown was the felony robbery suspect who assaulted and was shot and killed by a police office in Ferguson, MO. This incident precipitated the forensically false “Hand up. Don’t shoot!” narrative that led to nightly riots and the destruction of parts of the minority business district in that town.

Freddy Grey, as most of us know, was the drug dealing street person in Baltimore, MD, who resisted arrest and died in police custody quite possibly as a result of banging his head against the steel bolted walls of a police transport van. To date, the autopsy results show no direct linkage between Grey’s injuries and police brutality. Yet, six Baltimore police officers have been indicted in his death. Again, anonymous “activist” looters pillaged and burned portions of that city’s minority and elderly community.

Now for the name you may not be familiar with. Darren Goforth, was the Harris County, Texas Deputy Sheriff who was brutally executed this past weekend in an unprovoked and cowardly ambush by a suspect identified as Shannon Miles. Police arrested Miles shortly after the killing and so far he’s not talking. Deputy Goforth and Shannon Miles had never met each other and no connection between has been established. The media so far state that “the motive in the murder of Deputy Goforth is unknown.” Are you kidding me?! Here’s a motive for you. A war against police.

Make no mistake about it. The law enforcement community is under attack. Factually, more peace officers have been injured or killed this year alone than U.S. soldiers deployed overseas on the so called “War on Terrorism.” You didn’t know this? Why not? What you ask is causing this spike in what I refer to as “Officer-Directed Violence?” Well, I’ll tell you.

As a retired cop and now a forensic and behavioral expert; I have investigated hundreds of critical incidents resulting from violent encounters between citizens and police. In fact, my Forensic Death Investigations & Independent Review Team specializes in police-related death cases. Here is what I have found so far.

The uber liberal news media continues to forward a false message to an under or misinformed public that that police are inherently racist and violent.

Rather than endorsing and championing a message that the law enforcement and urban crime plagued communities need to support each other; these actors seem to thrive on creating distrust, dissention and division between police and the public. Of course, they all unanimously deny this is the case. So, what is to be believed? Let’s make you the forensic investigator to analyze a couple of cases from this past week alone.

Last week Louisiana State Trooper Steven Vincent was deliberately ambushed, shot and killed by Kevin Daigle, 54 years old, when the 44 year old officer stopped to render assistance to Daigle who had been involved in a single car accident. So far, the investigation has revealed that Trooper Vincent and suspect Daigle had never met each other. On Trooper Vincent’s dashcam audio, suspect Daigle is heard to taunt the hapless and mortally wounded trooper, saying, “You’re lucky. You’re going to die soon.” Daigle was neither wanted nor mentally deranged. Nothing the trooper did provoked the shooting.

trooper Steven Vincent

Kevin Daigle

In case you might think that there is a racial theme to this article, Trooper Vincent and his murderer were both white. From what we are now learning about murder suspect Shannon Miles’ cold-blooded murder of TX Deputy Sheriff Goforth; like murder suspect Daigle, Miles was also neither wanted by police, nor mentally disturbed. It appears that Miles and Daigle just wanted to kill a cop. But why?

Unprovoked, deliberate, cold blooded murders are actually rare occurrences. Yet, now the stories of murdered officers and the booking photos of their killers appear with far greater frequency on our TV screens now than in past years. We all know that police work is dangerous. For the most part, police are trained and train themselves in officer safety tactics. Responding to violent domestic disputes, armed robberies, gang fights, and active shooters are all part of the job. We accept it. It’s what we do and what the public we serve expect from us. It’s that simple.

However, this new dynamic of the wanton, willful and cowardly assassination of peace officers by ambush is a paradigm shift in the dynamic of officer-directed violence. It is an act of urban terrorism that is no different than if an ISIS cell member had planted and exploded IED under a police officer’s patrol car. There is NO difference because at the end of the day you still have a dead officer that resulted from an unprovoked attack. The purpose of terrorism is not only to kill innocents; but to psychologically paralyze the masses by instilling fear and breaking down the will to fight. Creating fear and submission through random acts of violence is central to the behavioral profile of the terrorist.

Very few of those involved in activist movements are protesting police brutality, racism or oppression. What they are protesting is the rule of law and police-community efforts to fight crime and violence to make communities drug, gang and violence free. That is the real war in America right now. Don’t be naïve. Our law enforcement officers comprise the “Thin Blue Line” of soldiers who separate and protect the innocent from the predatory criminals and the entitled, exploitive “users” who want a lawless society.

When national, state and municipal leaders criticize police for political reasons absent forensic proof; they not only polarize the law enforcement minority communities; but light the fuses of the mentally unbalanced “ticking time bombs” among us who take this dangerous rhetoric as a sign to commit future acts violence upon the police and their communities.

Do you think I’m offering a false narrative? Well then riddle me this. Do the last two names on my list, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu ring any bells? Well, they should. On December 21, 2014 Anti-Crime Unit NYPD Officers Ramos and Liu were peacefully sitting in their patrol car when they were suddenly approached and shot point blank in the head execution style by suspect Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 26.

Prior to assassinating the officers, Brinsley had ominously posted on his Instagram account, “I always wanted to be known for doing something right. I’m putting wings on pigs today.” His angry rants on social media indicated that he was going to murder police officers in retaliation for the officer-involved shooting/killing of felony robbery and police assault suspect Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO. Like his murderous and cowardly criminal colleagues Miles and Daigle, Ismaaiyl Brinsley was neither a wanted man nor mentally unstable. So what would cause this man to believe in his heart that he was “doing something right?”

Why would anyone think that the cold-blooded killing of police officers simply sitting in their patrol car; pumping gas; or seeking to assist a motorist in distress as doing the right thing? I’ll tell you why. It’s in large part because national, state, or local leaders they respect; activists who refer to themselves as men of God; and a news media that they trust tell them that the police are violent racists who shoot and kill people who are somehow involved in innocent or benign criminal behavior. “Hands up. Don’t shoot.” If you don’t believe me, then just watch the evening news where you will see protesting crowds walking down streets chanting, “Making bacon; pigs in a blanket.” What do you think they are referring to but the assassination of police officers?

So for me and my brothers and sisters in law enforcement, it all comes down to this. America is at a critical turning point. We can either be destroyed by ISIS and Al Qaeda terrorists from outside of our borders; or we can be destroyed from within by lawless criminal predators and society’s violent criminal activists and police haters. You choose.

The independent monitoring, professional investigation and criminal/civil prosecution of alleged and actual police misconduct is important in any free society. Peaceful protests forwarding this agenda is also appropriate, healthy and needed. However, what is largely happening throughout our nation right now is neither.

It is a forensic fact that only an extremely small percentage of the 900,000 peace officers in this nation act outside the bounds of the law. Police also do a far better job removing bad officers from their ranks than the State Bars do nationally to rid the justice system of bad attorneys; or the commissions on judicial responsibility do in removing incompetent or corrupt judges. That’s another fact.

Honest, hard-working police officers want the bad apples in law enforcement punished and gone as much, or more than you do. However, police officers will not tolerate any threats to their well-being and neither will those of us like me who support them.

So as a law enforcement community and as fellow Americans my brothers and sisters in blue and khaki and I ask you now. Where do you stand?

Stop supporting politicians, the media, corrupt activists and people you know who continue to forward false narratives that encourage and empower police hate, urban terrorism and the destruction of the rule of law. Stand up for law enforcement. Decry the false, hateful and anti-police rhetoric. Push back against politicians and activists who seek to polarize us. Work to strengthen the bridges of unity between police and the public by supporting law enforcement. If you don’t take a positive stand to support your protectors; we will certainly see America slowly but surely destroyed from within. It’s your choice. The real truth here is that ALL lives matter!

Ron Martinelli, Ph.D., is a forensic criminologist, Certified Medical Investigator and police expert who directs the nation’s only multidisciplinary Forensic Death Investigations & Independent Review Team. Visit his police and forensics social media site at www.DrRonMartinelli.com

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_in_the_War_in_Afghanistan

http://www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf

http://www.statista.com/statistics/262894/western-coalition-soldiers-killed-in-afghanistan/

http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/21/us/new-york-police-officers-shot/

http://ktla.com/2014/12/20/2-nypd-officers-shot-ambush-style-in-critical-condition-alleged-shooter-dead-from-self-inflicted-gunshot-wound-cnn/

Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.

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