How to create a toxic police department: 101

 I'm going to preface this entire post with this:

This is strictly my opinion, my observations, my experience, and my story.  You may not like it, and while I'd love nothing than to put this supervisor on blast by name, if you know me, you know who this person is because I've been vocal about this since it happened.

The other reason is I've always felt that when the upper echelon of supervisors in a department DO NOT lead their people correctly, the toxicity that lack creates disseminates itself into the front line officers.  It is in that toxicity that trauma (job caused or otherwise) festers and comes out as the dark side of policing: addiction, alcohol/drug abuse, violence at home and work, risky behaviors, and far, far too often...suicide.

One more point:

I'm not writing this for accolades but to give a back story.

    My police pedigree started in the 011th district, as for those of you who read this outside of the Chicago Police Department, think of the district as the murder capitol of the murder capitol.  011 has always led Chicago in murders, and I'd have to ask HeyJackass.com when that wasn't the case.  Definitely not while I was a Chicago cop.  Nevertheless there was more violence than we knew what to do with, and plenty more to spare.

    I, at the time, was "cannon fodder" as it was so lovingly described to me by that same aforementioned in different posts Salty Sergeant (ret.).  We all know it as an FTO.  That meant it was my responsibility to train the newbs, and what better place than the west side to do so!

    I, if you search my tweets, am a huge proponent of Law Enforcement Medical Aid and Rescue Training, or LEMART.  There are other acronyms for different training, but essentially it is the combat training we receive that trains us on tourniquets, quick clot/combat gauze, Hyfin/chest seals, pressure/Israeli bandages, and self/buddy care under fire.  If you've ever see SpotNews tweet about a tourniquet being applied, you now know what type of training that falls under.

    Since that was a big focus of mine, I was always hoping to find opportunities to practice in a real world situation and have my trainees do the same.

    "Wayaminut Potatoes, are you saying you used people as test dummies?"

    While it sounds that way, and I could even see it as such, nothing beats putting a tourniquet on a bleeding extremity and getting the high stress, condition Red, training in and seeing your skills go to work.  Any doctor, nurse, EMT, medic, corpsman, or any medical professional will probably agree that real world reps are better than just static, sterile, classroom reps.  Until you've actually been in that situation, where seconds count, being able to apply a lifesaving principle in action during that time is invaluable.

    Prior to this day I going to highlight in this post, I had the privilege of using my training on injured civilians with good outcomes.  I always used situations to apply my training and know that when the day comes and it is myself, my partner, a child, a mass casualty situation, or another citizen; I was ready to take action and perform under stress as smooth as possible.  I never wanted to be the cop on a bodycam freezing or unable to complete a lifesaving action because I went into condition Black and was unable to function.

    So the oh so familiar call comes out of a Shotspotter alert down the street from the district station on Harrison.  Then comes the multiple calls of a person shot, so my trainee and I go if for no other reason than he can get a chance to do a report for an 041A ....or an 0110.

    We arrive on scene and start to get people back, setup crime scene tape, and go about our functions as preliminary investigators on a shooting scene.  I was able to see the victim was in bad shape, multiple gun shot wounds, but was bleeding heavily from a femoral artery bleed.  My coworkers and I jump into action, locate the bleeding, and get a tourniquet on the victim in hopes it will do enough.

    And guess what?  It does.  The victim was able to survive the shooting.

    We never ran the victim's name, I knew nothing about their background, their history, their family, nothing.  Because in the moment we were there, rendering aid, none of us cared who they were.  They were a victim in need of help, we did what we could to help, and we cheated Death of this poor soul.

    Now I know what you are thinking, how is this indicative of a toxic department?  This sounds like good training, great teamwork, and prepared and seasoned officers who stepped up and performed flawlessly, so where's the toxic part?

    That's where this part of the story comes in...

    Cops all know who the perpetrators of violence are, the shooters, the trigger-men, the ones that take the lives without prejudice.  While sometimes those violent members of society find themselves on the wrong end of a gun and have their life snuffed out, we still will process a scene as best as we can, because their families at least deserve some justice.  Other times they find themselves on the front end of a jail sentence.  Either way we don't usually shed tears for these harbingers of death.

    Their debt has been paid to society, in one form or another.  Sometimes that "payment" doesn't seem fair or long enough, but there was some repayment for a heinous crime.

    Sometimes that payment is over 2 decades behind bars.

    For murdering another human.

    The next day at roll call I was made aware the victim that my coworkers and I threw a tourniquet on and saved their life had repaid society with 21 years behind bars for taking the life of someone else.  The juxtaposition that I had a part in saving the life of someone who callously took another's was, to be honest, humorous to me.  I made brush off comments that perhaps this new lease on life will cause them some grand revelation and they'll go on to better the world.

    Yes a little brash comment, I'll admit that, but dark humor and brash comments are where many cops find a middle ground between having too dark of a sense of humor and being too apathetic.  In all reality I never knew what happened after that day and where this person is in life, which I do hope they are doing something better.

    I didn't care about their pedigree, their history with the justice system, or how much they liked/disliked my profession, or me for that matter.

    After entering the hallway getting ready to go hit the streets I went to stop by the Watch Secretary's office for something, and who should I run into but the WOL as he stepped out of the secretary's office.

    (That's the Watch Operations Lieutenant for those non-CPD)

    This WOL was new-ish to the district and I knew very little of him, so what happened next floored me and has stuck with me since:

(Obviously not verbatim, but you'll get the gist)

WOL: "I heard you save that victim's life yesterday."

Me (sheepishly thinking I was going to get a compliment): "It was nothing, just stuck to my training and got another rep in."

WOL: "Did you know they did 21 years in prison for murdering someone?"

Me: "Yeah I found that out today."

WOL: "Listen, we don't save those kinds of people."

Me (thinking this is a dark joke and chuckling): "Oh well, I'll try not to next time."

WOL: "No seriously, we don't save those kinds of people.  Next time you do something like that again I'll find a reason to write you up."

Me: "Well that's nice, but I need to lay my head on my pillow at night and close my eyes.  You'll just have to find a reason to write me up then."

    That LT is one of the 3 big reasons I bid out of 011 when I could (and one of those times I had the words in the moment and not after).  I'm not sure where he is now, but I know he was the Tact LT in 011 for a bit and his toxicity created so many problems there that a whole team quit in unison.  (Yeah....that's a hint)

My point in writing this is this:

Controlling toxicity is a top down situation.

    The front line officers of any department outnumber their superiors and take way more time to drain out the toxic aspects.  Supervisors can, and should, be the ones who see the issues and do what they can within their sphere of influence of their officers to address the issues.  Yeah, no cop likes things being called out onto the rug, but if each supervisor took a moment to address what was wrong in front of them WITH their officers, not against them, perhaps the departments with a lot of toxicity would see that poison lessen.

    Some of the best supervisors were the ones that pulled me aside to check-in when my dark humor got a little too dark (we all know what I mean), or when the quality of my work was a little less satisfactory than usual.  Every cop knows those great supervisors who kept their eyes on the heartbeat of their officers and took care of them.

    Perhaps reducing that toxicity would possibly open doors for more officers to be more honest with where their head-space is and perhaps we wouldn't see the issues I mentioned above being synonymous with law enforcement.

    And maybe, just maybe, suicides and being a cop, especially a Chicago cop, won't go hand-in-hand anymore.

    While my story still bugs me to this day (it still irks me and pisses me off), I will say I've sought out therapy over the years and learned that while it was a shitty thing said, I know I'll never have to worry about being a supervisor like that.  

Because if nothing else, I learned exactly what not to do as a supervisor on that day.

To my fellow brothers and sisters in blue:

If you're feeling off, even a little, please reach out.  Check out local mental health resources, for those in Chicago Dr. Steiner at First Responder's Wellness Center, I cannot recommend her and her practice enough enough. 

There is the national suicide hotline at 988, if you don't feel comfortable there please call CopLine at 800-COPLINE.  Its staffed by retired coppers who have been there and know what it is like.

If nothing else, send me a message and I'll listen.