More likely PTSD. It’s common among all emergency workers. It doesn’t speak for or against a police officer, but when you go through shit, shit happens to you. Of the people I’ve known with PTSD, the ones holding on by their fingernails have all been cops (the medics seem to have a weird coping mechanism, because they get the worst of it). There’s only so many times you can breach a door for medics to a suicide, or be the guy who has to cuff a mother because they’re trying to run into a burning house to save their own kid who the firefighters said they couldn’t save.
None of that justifies much of what police do, however. And we usually use the “deadliest job” metric when discussing the need for deadly force; that is, that there really isn’t a need for them to walk everywhere hand-on-gun (or possibly even armed). That their suicide rate is so high actually works for reducing their weapon access (both due to suicide risk AND as evidence their life really isn’t in as much danger as we like to think).
More likely PTSD. It’s common among all emergency workers. It doesn’t speak for or against a police officer, but when you go through shit, shit happens to you. Of the people I’ve known with PTSD, the ones holding on by their fingernails have all been cops (the medics seem to have a weird coping mechanism, because they get the worst of it). There’s only so many times you can breach a door for medics to a suicide, or be the guy who has to cuff a mother because they’re trying to run into a burning house to save their own kid who the firefighters said they couldn’t save.
None of that justifies much of what police do, however. And we usually use the “deadliest job” metric when discussing the need for deadly force; that is, that there really isn’t a need for them to walk everywhere hand-on-gun (or possibly even armed). That their suicide rate is so high actually works for reducing their weapon access (both due to suicide risk AND as evidence their life really isn’t in as much danger as we like to think).