In addition to the impact of traumatic events, officers say that close scrutiny of their work and public misconceptions about how they operate are another source of job stress, especially in the wake of high-profile incidents such as trial of Const. It (tension from the job) doesn’t de-escalate overnight.” You see a lot of nasty stuff over your career.”įor Alex, playing sports is a way of reducing stress associated with some of the trauma. “You drive by the spot and that triggers the memory of those situations. You could call it post-traumatic stress or whatever,” Alex says. A number of years ago he nearly died in a collision that occurred while on-duty, a situation he says resulted in stress similar to that evoked by other traumatic incidents. Officers also have their own way of coping day-to-day.Īlex (not his real name) is another officer with more than 20 years on the force. “We have debrief teams, we have resident psychologists, we have a very robust family assistance program, the Toronto Police Association has their own family assistance program coordinator so it’s a different environment,” he says. Today, there are a range of services on offer for officers after a traumatic event. Much of the narrative around it has been ‘suck it up – this is what you signed up for. “The way we look at things, trying to break down that culture. “Policing has changed dramatically,” McCormack says.
He notes that Toronto police have made progress overcoming some of the stigma and machismo around mental health issues since he was a young officer. “Everybody handles it differently,” McCormack says. The list of issues officers may face following exposure to trauma includes sleep problems, bed sweats, zoning out of conversations, alcohol abuse and relationship problems. Trusting others can also be difficult, he says. And the body’s there in an open casket and I’m not affected by it,” Chris says. “If I’m at a funeral for example, I find I’m the only one not crying. While he’s never fired his weapon, he says there are times when he’s come dangerously close to taking the safety off his firearm.Ĭhris says he loves his job and while he was never naive about the kinds of things he might see as an officer, he says it’s impossible not to be affected. There’s no question it weighs on you heavy,” says Chris, an officer with more than 20 years of experience on the force. “There’s stuff going on you guys never hear about. He arrived just in time to see the person take his own life. However a parallel issue is sometimes forgotten – how officers deal with the mental toll of what they encounter in the field.Ī current Toronto police officer who preferred not be named (we’ll call him Chris) remembers being called to a home for a person with a weapon. Much attention has been paid recently to how police handle encounters with people who may be mentally ill.
NUCLEAR THRONE STRESS FULL
Most have a chest full of similar war stories. It wasn’t McCormack’s only encounter with death as an officer, nor is it an unusual story for an officer who has logged many years in the field. It’ a pretty traumatic experience and back in those days that’s how we dealt with it – I got a call from the superintendent saying ‘well are you ok?’ And I thought ‘this is odd’ and then he said ‘Oh yeah nothing, I’ll see you at work tomorrow.’” “We found a suicide note on him when we got him to the hospital.
McCormack called an ambulance and waited with the man, watching the protruding knife handle tick with his heartbeat until he died. “That person eventually took that knife and plunged it into their own heart and fell between my legs.” “I was trying to talk them into dropping the knife,” McCormack remembers. These days he is best known as president of the Toronto Police Association, but he can still picture vividly that day years ago when as a young officer he was sent to deal with the man threatening people with a long hunting knife. The thing that’s really amazing is the recall on it,” McCormack says. “There’s a whole bunch of things that go through your mind. It’s been years, but Mike McCormack can still recall the clothes worn by a man wielding a knife near the intersection of Jarvis and Bloor. WARNING: The following article contains descriptions of some scenes and images that people might find disturbing.
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