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Shootings take toll on police, firemen
(by Joseph Koziol Jr. - August 30, 2012)
Shootings take toll on police, firemen
By JOSEPH KOZIOL JR.
CHARDON – The city’s police and fire departments can do their jobs in a professional and well-coordinated manner. For all their training, however, there is nothing that can prepare their emotional psyches for repeated tragedies this year.
“You are used to turning on your TV and seeing these things in the big cities,” Chardon Police Chief Timothy McKenna said. “You do what you have to do. When you’re done, that’s when the ‘what ifs’ begin. When tragic things happen, it’s just human nature to ask why.”
Police and fire officials have seen five shooting deaths in the city this year, something that is out of the norm for the city and Geauga County.
“The numbers have always been low for this sort of thing,” Mr. McKenna said.
While there have been bad car accidents, suicides and even a murder, nothing compares with this year. “There nothing that is to the degree of these crimes,” he said.
Mr. McKenna, who is planning to retire in June 2014, said this is the worst year he has experienced in his 37 1/2 years in law enforcement.
The tragedies have caused a loss of innocence in the city with many realizing the “little bubble” that was Chardon has been shattered and that these types of crimes can come right to your front door.
The stress felt by those who serve the public has had a cumulative effect as one tragedy followed another. Even events across the country, such as the shootings in Colorado and Wisconsin, can reopen wounds left by local tragedies, Mr. McKenna said.
Feelings that an officer or firefighter takes away after dealing with a tragedy can last a lifetime. Mr. McKenna said his department, as well as the Geauga County Sheriff’s Department and surrounding fire departments, has called on professionals to help get through these emotionally trying times.
Counselors were made available by the evening of the Feb. 27 school shootings. About two dozen police officers and about 50 firefighters attended that session, he said, although he bowed out to avoid his officers from feeling reluctant to talk about their feelings.
Following an officer-involved shooting in July, counselors were called in to speak to Chardon officers.
Every person is affected differently, Mr. McKenna said. “There is no way to swallow a pill or wave a magic wand to make it go away.”
The department has relied on two agencies to provide support: the West Shore Critical Incident Response Services and the Lake-Geauga Critical Incident Stress Management Team.
The West Shore agency helps those involved to vent. “Certain occurrences, called critical incidents, can evoke extraordinary emotional reactions, which can interfere with or overwhelm emergency workers’ abilities to function or cope either at the scene or later. When this happens, individuals may benefit from a critical incident stress debriefing in which they are encouraged to vent their emotions and explore the personal impact of the incident,” according to the agency.
The work is just beginning when a crime occurs. In the case of the school shootings, the department was responsible for collecting and cataloguing 1,500 pieces of evidence.
There also was constant vigilance as officers made their way through the community and schools when school resumed a few days later, Mr. McKenna said. “We always have to consider whether staff, teachers or students could have an issue when they first walk in.”
Mr. McKenna tries to follow the advice given to him by his father, a former lieutenant with the Bratenahl Police Department. “He always said (to) take all the funny stories home, but leave the serious stuff at work,” he said.
That advice, however, got him in trouble with his wife, who would find out about the less pleasant side of his job through local media. She often would be angry, he said, that she had to learn about things that way rather than from her husband.
Mr. McKenna said he is hopeful that once the criminal trial for the school shootings is completed, the community will be able to begin healing.
Of all the unseemly things police and fire must contend with, it’s always the death of children that is the most difficult.
“Most definitely,” he said. “That’s why you go home at night and hug your own.”
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