Four former Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department deputies took their own lives over a six-year period, according to a recent investigation done by The Badger Project, an independent Wisconsin news nonprofit organization.
In all four cases, trauma — whether it was on the job or off — was a factor that caused mental health issues, according to the investigation.
The Shawano Police Department has a number of mental health protocols in place to try and prevent its officers and other staff from considering suicide or self-harm. According to Police Chief Mike Musolff, the first step to providing help is to reduce the stigma.
“If you have issues or things going on in life or at work, you know that you can come and get help if you need it,” Musolff said. “We make sure that none of the officers think that they can’t do that, and I think we’ve done a really good job.”
Musolff noted that it’s important for police officers to be in a state of good mental health so that they make good decisions when they go out on calls. That serves the community more effectively, he said.
“Officers deal with some people on their worst possible day,” Musolff said. “That takes a toll on the officers’ wellness. For years and years, it was, ‘You just deal with it.’ If you had a bad call, there really was no talking about it afterwards. I think that was a travesty, because you build up those traumas in your brain, and nobody ever knows them except for the officer.”
Officer wellness initiatives have been pushed by many law enforcement agencies across the state to try and prevent incidents like what Waukesha County has gone through, according to Musolff.
Capt. Shane Stange, who coordinates the mental health protocols for city police officers, noted that most people go through an average of two or three traumatic experiences in their lifetime. That average is much higher for law enforcement, he said, as officers and other first responders can witness or experience 30-40 traumatic incidents, with the majority of them on the job.
“About four or five years ago, we discovered a lot of police officers were committing suicide,” Stange said, noting that those suicides were happening in other police departments. “We wanted to get ahead of it and be proactive, not reactive.”
He added that officers don’t usually get to “push the pause button” following a traumatic call, as many times there are other calls that need attention and only so many officers to respond in a smaller community. Stress can wreak havoc on a person’s body, Stange said, and dealing with so much trauma is akin to death by a thousand cuts.
Shawano police officers are required to, at least twice annually, speak with a counselor contracted with the department. Stange said the stigma made city officers resistant at first, not wanting to tell their feelings to a counselor.
The counseling sessions are an hour long, and the officers get paid overtime for the time spent with the counselor, according to Stange. Department administrators are not told what officers discuss with counselors unless they say they plan to harm themselves in the near future.
Now, years after implementation, officers actually look forward to speaking to the counselor, a retired police officer in Appleton, according to Stange.
“We don’t expect you to spill your deepest, darkest secrets to a stranger you just met,” he said. “When you get your fourth or fifth session with a counselor, that’s when you start to say, ‘Here’s what I have going on.’”
Besides the counselor, officers are also permitted to do athletic workouts on-duty, usually during the lunch period, according to Stange.
“Studies have shown that, if you exercise, it’s a great stress reliever,” he said.
The department also has a “debrief” within a week of a major traumatic call, Stange said, either with the counselor or with Wellness Command Post, to discuss with other first responders what they’re going through.
“Administration typically isn’t involved in those in order to avoid the whole: ‘I don’t want my supervisor hearing what I have to say,’” Stange said.
He noted that the city also works with three chaplains, which include former police officers, as an outlet for officers to speak about any mental health concerns they’re dealing with. Stange said there are three, because every person has a particular way they worship or practice their faith.
“If you don’t want to speak with a counselor, you can speak with a chaplain,” he said.
One other resource for city officers is the Guardian app. Musolff said the app was set up by the state’s law enforcement death response team that allows local law enforcement to contact other officers, chaplains or command staff for peer support.
“You have the app, and you can just hit the button,” Musolff said. “You can talk to people in other departments, and you’re not talking with people in your own department, where you have to worry about them going, ‘Oh, look at Jimmy. He did this,’ or ‘Jimmy’s suicidal.’”
lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com
