PO Potatoes- The thoughts and musings of a crime fighting Potato

  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 dist

 " What do you see when you're in the dark, and the demons come? " - Frank Horrigan ( In The Line of Fire) It's 4 am as I start to write this.  It has been something bouncing around in my head for a while, and if you know me I'm all about dumping shit off your chest.  I'm a big advocate for cops seeking out mental health resources.  That can be with a licensed counselor, a PhD'd doctor, a clinician, a good friend, or just a buddy at work.  We all need to vent out work related stresses, and when we don't it should be no surprise police officers have a higher rate of suicide than other professions.  And in Chicago we are found to be even higher within the profession. My first dead body was an elderly man that had a lot of health issues and his kids couldn't get him on the phone.  We made entry and found him.  He was long gone.  But I clearly remember 2 distinct things about him, his eyes (which were still open) and his hand was grasping the cord for