Man I get why spending the day ranching would be great therapy after that. It seems to me the good cops burn out a lot like you described. What good person can see that and immerse themselves in it and not get mentally burnt? It's just.... too damn damaging to have that stuff in your head all the time. It's a pale comparison, but years ago I quit looking at gruesome death and autopsy pictures from death cases. Those are just photos. I don't know how good cops deal with it.
I was defending a small town police chief years ago and we're driving somewhere (maybe a deposition) I'm trying to get to know and bond with the guy, and he had been keeping death scene photos to put in a book. He really thought that stuff was cool. He was just as serious as he could be. His favorite was he had some video of a guy doing "the chicken" after he killed himself. There's a lot of variety among people that wear a badge. The good ones are worth their weight in gold and the bad ones are lucky they're not digging ditches.
Yikes! Never worked with anybody like that, thank God. How that guy made it through the psychological testing is amazing. I did work with a few that were just too full of themselves. The Johnny Bad Ass types that everybody has seen and that everybody hates. I’m in favor of periodic psychological evaluation of officers, but until somebody makes me the monarch, I don’t see it happening. I guess paying huge settlements is more fun?
I think some officers put up a psychological wall over time to deal with all the shit that happens. And you can spot those people pretty quickly, void of any compassion. Those are the assholes. If you try to maintain your humanity, then it just eats at you.
I had just moved from Oklahoma to Wyoming where I had a job waiting for me. I was being field trained by a cop who had moved to Wyoming from California. After a couple of weeks, we drove to the office and California guy goes into the sergeant’s office and closed the door. After a couple minutes, they call me in and the sergeant tells me that they’re concerned that I might be “too nice” for the job. Mind you, I had already been a cop for 7 years prior to this. I thought “Holy shit, they’re going to can me for no f’n reason, I better do something fast.” So I physically shoved California guy and nearly knocked him on his ass, called him an asshole and told the sergeant, “Just because I haven’t had to do it doesn’t mean I don’t know how to do it.” I looked back at California guy and said I’ll leave you alone to discuss the matter further and walked out and closed the door behind me. I sat outside thinking well, I just went out in a blaze of glory. Less than a minute later, California guy walks out and says, “OK, let’s go” and back on patrol we went. From that day on, they pretty much let me do police work how I saw fit, which was to take a little extra time with people, let them vent when they needed to and be as nice as they would allow me to be.
That was probably the most strange moment in a 27 year career. I don’t think that would happen nowadays. I don’t regret going into law enforcement, but I wouldn’t have stayed as long if I had to do it over.
