Recent Rash of Police Brutality may be lack of Departments Addressing PTSD

We all should be very much aware now that post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD does not only affect combat veterans but all of us if we have experienced a terrifying incident.  Yet this knowledge and recognition has not translated to the awareness of people in charge providing those workers/employees with the necessary personnel or information to properly deal with this fact.

Much like military members who have served in peace time had to constantly deal with the possibility of being called to duty at any time while they wore that uniform, so is the case for every police officer and correction official who steps into that arena, trying to make a living and provide for his or her family.  And as much as those veterans who are often overlooked as suffering from such, so are many departments overlooking those officers previously mentioned.

Now don’t get it twisted, this is not an excuse for their actions because even if they are suffering from this disorder, that does not give them the right to express or take out their frustration on those they were sworn to serve and protect.  It should, however, provide some of us with an insight as to why we now find blatant cases of so much police brutality all over the internet and YouTube. 

Police, Fire and Correction Departments need to get a handle on this before it grows and becomes completely uncontrollable.  The first steps have already been taken toward this cliff when now the public no longer trust those that they used to see as protectors and fair in their treatment.  The next major step is when this same public begins to return the same exact treatment that they are receiving at the hands of these uniformed protectors and once that begins to happen on a much larger scale, that cliff will soon become only a few steps away.

I personally do not know why we have to wait until every brick has fallen and struck us on the head before we look around and see the building crumbling in around us but for some reason or another we do.  It appears that if we think that it does not exist and resist acknowledgment of it, the issue will just magically disappear.  So far, according to our history, this has never worked just look at those signs that we were given about racism, sexism, child abuse and so many others.  All these things are still rampant within our society and none of them have been eradicated.  All that has happened is that we have pushed the indications so far back that it has become so much easier to ignore than to deal with.

Whether medical professionals wish to admit this or not and whether department heads wish to embrace this fact or not, this disorder will continue to drive our criminal system and it will continue to devour our very souls unless we wake up and smell what the kitchen is cooking.