A thirty-four year old father lined his three young boys in his front yard and executed them with a rifle in a rural area just east of Cincinnati, Ohio. One of the three ran into a wooded area near the home and was captured by the father, who returned him to the house and executed him.
A 9-1-1 call from a neighbor resulted in a massive response from police, fire and medical units. Those officers now have to deal with the aftermath of the incident as they go home to their families and children.
Over the past several years, public safety officers have been provided with peer support. The support comes from other public safety officers who have been in similar situation and they relay how they worked through a trauma that no training can prepare a person for.
Public safety officers respond to incidents where people die and each handle that as a part of the profession. But when the victims are children and their deaths have no logical rationale, they are difficult to process and deal with.
Public safety officers receive significant training in leaving their personal feeling in their private vehicles and dealing with horrific tragedies with professionalism. There is no training for dealing with the aftermath on a personal level other than giving them resources to access in the days, weeks and maybe months that follow.
Public safety officers are not robots. They have feelings that needs to be addressed by their peers and the agencies that employ them. This is a difficult task because officers are afraid of the stigma attached to asking for help.
The solution may well be mandatory counselling after a major incident and training of personnel that seeking counselling is not a signal of weakness. All agencies should have access to a psychological professional who is independent of the public safety agency and does not report to the agency. It should include an exception if the public safety employee presents an imminent danger to themselves or others.
There are no simple answers.