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We are episode three of the urban awareness
series where our discussions will revolve
around what to expect after the incident.
But first Paul, now you recalled something that
you wanted to clear up from episode two.
Um, in the last podcast.
I couldn't remember the name of Brian Willis.
And he is the president of the, uh, of the
Winning Mind Training and company, er training.
Uh, and that WIN principle, what's
important now, is the most important
question in life.
And his training, uh, tells you how to develop
that concept and not to horn in any more
on him and issues with copyright, but I just
want to promote Brian Willis at this point.
And, uh, and his, what is important now, principles
for both everyday living for normal people
and police training.
Excellent.
Met him about out 30 something years ago
in Ottawa, we were at the Canadian Police
College together, and I was immediately
struck with the guy.
Uh, enjoyed, uh, the time I spent with him
stayed in touch for a little bit lost track
and sure enough, he turns up, uh, delivering
his WIN program at the, um, I guess it was the,
yeah, it was the, uh, city Vancouver Tactical
Training Centre and lo and behold, there's Brian
and I look at them and one of the things that
became important to him was lose weight, and
boy did he ever, he was hardly recognizable,
but that's that's it.
Awesome.
WIN, I like it.
What's important now.
Well, after you've won, what happens?
So we're in the after now, we had the, before
the, during and after, now after, Paul, have
you ever found yourself in a situation where you
have had a argument, or disagreement, something's
happened and you spend a lot of time afterwards
thinking about, oh, I should've done this, or
I should've said that.
I think everyone's had that.
And there's a very easy way to help minimize
the effects of that.
And that's by properly preparing before and
understanding what this whole after
section looks like.
Yeah.
The 20-20 hindsight, right?
Tell me about it.
Everyone's got that in crystal clear vision.
And, and, you know, that happens with everything.
You know, you buy a car, uh, you've got20-20
hindsight, buyer's remorse, all those
things, you know, that.
And there's stress in buying a car, I don't
care who you are.
There's you know, that first meeting with
another person who you have an affection for,
and you go, oh, as you're driving away from the
disaster of that meeting and re-living the moment.
But we're talking about some serious
stuff here and some of the things that can
affect you afterwards.
And I know we alluded to, um, Joseph Wambaugh
and the onion field, and you know, what happened
to those officers after the moment, but
you really got to in the planning stage for
the three phases of, you know, a critical
incident, this now we actually need to plan for
post critical incident.
Now the term PTSD post traumatic stress disorder
is, is used a lot.
And it's a very, very real thing.
It's evolving.
It, it does.
And, and our treatment of it and our acceptance
of it, and our recognition of who can
be involved in an, in it's not just a first
responders thing as well.
Um, it was interesting today listening to local
radio station, top of the news, you know, they're
going through some of the highlights and in
light of the recent, uh, number of these open air
shootings, uh, targeted hits, they're asking the
people, how do they feel?
What do they think?
And, and they're not only reaching out to people
who haven't experienced that the, the public
in general, but I think they're starting to
talk to the people that are there and, and that
can be, you know, a lot of stuff going on.
Um, survivor's guilt is part of
post-traumatic stress.
Um, and that is E nothing happened to me.
I'm here and I feel bad because, was there
more I could have done, Did I you know,
put, you know what, that's one, you should
never feel bad about.
Survivor's guilt, um, is, you know, a real thing.
Uh, it can be treated of course, as any kind
of, uh, disorder, as a result of something
like this, you know, getting treated for it is
probably one of the plans you should have if you've
been through something like this and you think
that you should just ride it out afterwards
and not talk to a pro.
Forget about it.
Pardon my expression, but you're a crazy.
Like that, uh, if you've been somewhere and
something of this high order occurs in front of
you and you're just gonna shake it off and tell
your friends, not good.
So after an incident, whether that was a
physical altercation, whether there's a weapon
involved, whether, uh, maybe it was just
a verbal altercation that somebody was in.
How bought a horrible car accident in front of you.
Right.
If I'm personally involved in that
incident, one of the first things that I will
tend to do is give a quick rapid body survey,
make sure I don't have things sticking out
to me that shouldn't be sticking out at me.
Maybe when the adrenaline kicked in, I didn't feel
things as I normally would and make sure that
there isn't any immediate medical attention that I
need in order to be able to continue surviving
after the first incident.
So that's one of the things.
I will then look to those around me and
see, are they in the same situation.
Is everybody else okay.
Right.
Uh, and then there's going to be the
physiological effects of the adrenaline
wearing off and the shakes and the.
Extreme fatigue.
Huge.
And knowing that that's normal, knowing that
this is a very natural response that the
body has to critical incident stress.
And when all of this stuff kinda, abates
there, if the police are involved, be prepared
to be questioned as if you were possibly the
bad guy, the bad person.
Yeah.
So we'll just, lets just clarify.
And we'll talk, you know, post
incident, this is it.
This is where you did get involved in something.
You were, you got, you got physical with
somebody or, or they got physical with you.
And, and there was, there was a conflict,
there was a physical, uh, contact and
everything went that way.
Okay.
So we'll keep our focus on that maybe as, so
in the immediate after at, excellent, check
yourself out, have somebody else look, look
through your hair, look through all these other
things, make sure that there's nothing leaking.
And because what happened when, during, when you
had that huge adrenaline dump that also can send
all kinds of, you know, natural painkillers
throughout your body to keep you in the fight.
And now that may start to, uh, to start to
show up, check the people around you.
Absolutely.
One step before that, are you a hundred
percent safe at that moment before we
start doing that?
Like, we need that one in there now.
Now we are safe.
We've checked ourselves out, we've gone over.
The hands start to shake, potentially.
Um, and again, I it's, it's a lot, uh, based on
how much you've trained beforehand, whether
that's going to happen.
And I gotta be, you know, forthright with this,
the, the person that got through it, got through
it on a minimal amount of training without a whole
lot of rehearsal, likely to feel those immediate
effects a little bit more than the trained
person and, you know, um, your cognitive effects,
starting to come back at this point as well.
Thinking of the bigger picture, I have seen
people that are just they're, it's over,
it's done, everything's safe, but they're
still not there.
They're, you know, running around in circles
there they're having problems processing what
they just went through and the more trained
person is now realizing, okay, what are the
next steps involved?
You know.
So, uh, you know, I don't know, without
getting into too many specifics, but you know,
the subject is down and out and there's
no fight left in it.
The one plus one rule, is there anybody else, who's
checking to see that, who's watching, who's
administering first aid?
You know, all these sorts of things
are important, um.
Make sure the police are called if
needed or ambulance
. Absolutely!
Preservation of any evidence that may be
potentially there.
All these things, you know, are in that moment.
But let's just, again, going back to the
handshaking, one of the things that people want
to do is now make it look like they're normal
and the emotion of maybe some, like, maybe it's
appropriate if I'm I'm upset with myself and
started saying things like, oh, I should have
done something else.
Maybe this, you know, when it
turned out so bad.
They start acting it up.
Yeah.
Uh, and w a true feeling that comes from a lot
of this stuff, if you did win, and you did it
successfully, is a sense of overwhelming pride
and satisfaction that gee whiz, I did that.
And you know, what, if you've laid waste to
somebody physically, whatever the case may be,
people started thinking, well, you blood thirsty
son of a gun, you know, daughter of a gun maybe.
And, and how dare you feel good
about what you did?
Well, it's not wrong.
No, it's natural.
And, and, and now we're going to save this for
just a little bit later in the aftermath, and
who's appropriate to tell this to, but don't
hide that from yourself.
It's not a wrong thing to feel in that
immediate aftermath.
It's not, you know, pride in yourself, relief.
You want to congratulate yourself.
You, you know, you, you, you go, oh my
God, I like, that was me that ended that.
There's nothing wrong with that.
Mhmm.
Now turning around to the TV camera, that's
shown up and they shove a microphone in your
face and wanting to, you know, fist pump
and, and everything else in that circumstance,
we'll save it.
Right.
High five's for everyone.
Yeah.
Let's not do that at that moment.
Whereas you've seen time and time again in
a critical incident, law enforcement, the
military, uh, they've, they've gone and just
overcome a situation of extreme stress.
And the next thing you know, they high five
each other, and that gets captured on camera.
Right.
Well, you know what.
There's no context there because nobody who's
watching that on TV or in the taping afterwards
has the emotions that those people have.
And were they wrong emotions?
No.
Were they expressed incorrectly and was
it captured on tape?
Absolutely.
And you know, and then these things are hard
for the people, the non sheepdogs to appreciate.
And, and, and you know what, the wolves are
not just the people that are attacking you.
The wolves are out there in society
because they want to suppress the sheepdog.
Sheepdog is always a threat to a wolf.
Now the wolves may not be physically
attacking, but the wolves have agendas, right.
I'm getting a little bit political here,
but that's the way I really feel.
Mhmm.
I don't disagree with you.
And if you can belittle the sheepdog for doing
what the sheepdog does, the sheep who
has no grounding in the sheepdog's
purpose sees it.
So anyways, getting back to in the immediate,
don't be embarrassed by that feeling of,
of a sense of pride.
That's a good point.
Okay.
Don't be, you know, don't be upset about that.
So we're in the immediate here, your physical
self is taken care of.
You're feeling some different emotions.
Okay.
Uh, don't be afraid of that feeling that
that said I did the right thing and don't
feel there's a huge obligation at that moment
to start explaining what you just did.
Law enforcement arrives, first aid arrives,
whatever it's that big of a thing they
need to talk to you.
Interesting thing about law enforcement
arriving, just a bit of a side note.
Whoever calls law enforcement in
first tends to wear a white hat.
So if you're able to get on your cell phone
and get it out there that, uh, you are the
reportee uh, you are that entity that has
called the police.
Yeah, that's a good plan.
And that, that is, and then you also set a bit
of a stage by, you know, relating a little bit,
but what you got to be careful of is if you
did cause physical harm to another individual,
even though it was in complete defense of your
own self, you don't want to be too willing to try
and explain everything in the moment, because
what you're not realizing is in that 24 hours
following an extremely stressful event, you're
still suffering those effects, those good
effects that you had of.
Um, I suppose like we call it, uh, a wrinkle
in the space time continuum, but really
visual narrowing, auditory, exclusion,
um, depth perception, all of these things are
altered in the moment.
Okay.
Um, people, you know, say, oh man, I got the
guy and the time it took for him to, you know, to
do you really don't have the grounding to start
talking a lot about that.
You're kind of the worst possible witness
to your own event.
Right.
Because you've got a very, very
narrow perspective of what happened.
Whereas somebody else looking at this
might have a much better perspective.
And one of the things we see in today's world
is the reliability of eye witness accounts of
what really happened.
A really good investigator will
rely much more on the, whatever they have
for physical evidence.
You know, so where the, you know, the blood
splatter is, where the casing lands, all those
things are way more, you know, absolute than
what a person says.
And I would just, honestly, from having
been there myself, say look, I want to be
completely cooperative with everybody right
now, but my statement may be affected by the
feelings that I have.
And that's, that's the thing, be prepared to say
that I'm not withholding anything, but without
having the chance to talk to someone who's not
involved and the time for me to gather my thoughts.
I will give you a full statement
tomorrow, or later.
And it's very tough for, and haven't been one
for as long as I was, for cop to accept that.
Right.
And say.
They're not good.
They're not going to want to, they want
the whole story.
They want it now, they want to get the report
written and, and get the investigation
underway and all these other things.
Well if you've got nothing to hide, why
wouldn't you talk?
That's right.
Yes, exactly.
And that's, you know, that is it.
And you don't have anything to hide, but.
You don't.
But in the interest and you got to, you know,
explain and articulate this properly, in the
interest of accuracy, I'm not prepared.
Now, if the situation is still ongoing, somebody
has fled the scene.
That's still important to the investigation, by
all means, you gotta give what sketchy details as
possible, but you need to preface everything
that you're saying.
It's like, you know, I'm telling you this,
now this is the best I understand but the,
my absolute statement that I'm going to live
and die for or buy is not coming right now.
This isn't it, I'm, I'm too close to the
incident for you to, you know, uh, listen
all this stuff and, and it is, it's very, very
tough to accept on the part of an investigator,
but you know what?
This is you.
As I was sitting in the major crime office,
I had been given my rights that I didn't
have to say anything, you know, just like on
TV and I'm there and I said, yeah, that's fine,
I've called my lawyer.
Um, there is a post-incident team that
will come and talk to you, they're on their way
to come and talk to me.
But the, the sergeant comes in and he says to
me, he says, you know, uh, I know you, you
said you don't want to say anything until you
speak to your lawyer, but the forensic guys
at the scene, they can't find the casing
from your pistol.
Uh, is there any chance you picked it up?
We just need that and you know, and I said, no,
it's in the mop bucket in the hallway next to
where I was standing.
Cause now going back to the moment and, and,
and all the things that were going on when I
fired that shot in my peripheral vision, I
saw the case arc up out of the ejection port of
the pistol and somewhere deep in the back of my
head, I still heard the plunk sizz, and actually
a sizzle plunk of that case going into a mop
bucket, it was in the hallway of, of where the
shooting had occurred.
And I could see the look on the sergeants
face like, oh, and he's on the cell phone.
Okay rainman.
He's on the cell phone to the forensic guy.
That's there who's was a guy.
I know actually a hunting partner.
And, uh, he goes, what?
You can hear him saying this.
So anyways, got it.
And they just said, got it, and that's
where it was.
But weird.
I took that in, in that moment.
And you know, so, but the point being is I wasn't
saying anything, I talked to my lawyer, I gave the
statement to my lawyer, um, that I recalled,
he was fine with that.
We got back together later the next morning,
uh, to review the statement, which
he had recorded and then prepared for my
signature, which we were going to offer up and
everything was fine.
There was no, you know, there was no big if,
ands or anything, but we wanted to get distances
and everything correct.
And, um, that next day I went about some
business, which is another interesting
thigh side to things, gave my statement.
And then I get, you know, in the police
world, what happens now is they say, you know,
always sounds suspicious, the officer has been
put on paid leave.
But they just basically say, Hey, you know.
Take some time.
And they want you to take some time.
In that time thing, the only thing I wanted to do
was go back to the scene.
I really wanted to see it again.
There was no opportunity to do that.
I, you know, took my couple of weeks,
whatever it was at the time, uh, went
about my regular life.
I'll tell you, uh, in that period of time,
one of the things that bothered me more
than anything, um, you know, and, and things
will irritate you is everybody wants to
hear the story over and over and over again.
Right.
And that's totally normal.
It's normal for people to want, cause
they want to learn.
They want to hear.
Right.
And there's nothing wrong with talking about it.
But there's certain people that you
probably want to avoid talking to it about it.
It's been, I sought out a couple other people
that have been there and those were the ones
I want to talk about.
And that's nothing wrong with that.
So in that post situation, if, if
you can find somebody to relate to, and in
many cases, you know, the, the post critical
incident team that, uh, those are people that
have been there and they have, um, empathy.
Right.
And I think you bring up a good
point about talking about it afterwards.
It's an important thing to do, but there's a
right way and a wrong way, to talk about it
because, as research looks at how our brains
work or prefrontal cortex which has got
our decision-making and our short-term memory
and our hippocampus we'll take our long-term
memory, our amygdala will hold our emotions.
And as we start processing certain
types of events and our prefrontal
cortex, it'll start downloading hard copies
into your hippocampus and your amygdala.
And even though you aren't actually in a
certain situation at that certain time, you will
recount those emotions as if you were, and if you
continually download the information into those,
into those storage banks.
It's like a flushing almost.
In the improper way.
It's like, and I, and I liken it to going down
a dirt road and you wore some tracks in there.
The more you drive the same road, the deeper
those tracks get, and the harder it is to get out,
which is a big part about where PTSD, critical
incident stress and PTSD, um, theory and therapy
is being worked on.
How do we get the brain out of that rut and
those tracks in order to be able to view the
same from a perspective as it ought to be.
So talking important, I told.
Yes.
Talking to the police at the time of the event.
You're the worst possible witness.
Nope.
Yeah, you're not a good witness at that time.
Talking it out with somebody, the idea is
also about culpability.
You know, if there's any, um, somebody wants to
make some suggested that you did something wrong.
Do you remember anybody you talk to, uh, can
also be called later, uh, as, as a, you know,
as a witness to you.
So, you know, the best person to talk to
about this is somebody who cannot testify
against you, which is your psychologist
or a psychiatrist or someone like that.
And getting in and before that person to do
your initial download, oh, the lawyer also
is very good, lawyers.
Sure.
You know, and they can listen.
They may have no grounding in it, but
they can certainly, uh, listen to you.
And then the lawyer is not gonna look at you
say, geez, you should leave that part out
of your statement.
Cause they don't do that.
No.
You know, that's not what they do.
I mean, if you've really done some significant
harm to somebody, but you got out of
it that way, a lawyer is definitely there.
If the whole situation we're talking about is
maybe you've defended yourself against a sexual
attack or a robbery.
Okay.
Um, talk, one of the things you see the
police is I only get my statement now, but
I sure want to talk to somebody and I want to
talk to the right people.
In today's world, most of the time that police
might be the very best resource you have for
directing you to do that.
Despite everything that people want to
say, today's police officer is trained to
understand the effects of post traumatic stress.
And they are told, they are told that victims
are going to feel that.
And almost every agency has some form of victim
services, uh, that will be available to you.
And, and don't, don't be that person that's,
ohh, I don't want to talk to anybody about
this, you know, I'm going to be okay.
I'm going to run home until my wife and tell,
you know, my friends and I'm going to, you know,
have a couple of beers.
Cause it was exciting too.
That's that's another tendency that you
have, you know, like, wow, I'm, I'm alive
and I'm okay and.
You're happy.
Well, you know, there's probably a much more male
thing to do, you know, but to go out and get
together with your buds and tell them about it.
Um, some people can be effected at a deeply,
deeply emotional level by this.
You got to deal with that.
And the sooner it happens.
And done with a professional who can
carry you forward, that's a good thing.
And it's going to affect everyone differently.
Yeah.
I mean, people are gonna have different, uh,
cognitive resiliencies.
Uh, they're going to be in different situations.
I remember talking about a, um, uh, uh, there was
a study once about these vets from world war one
fighting in world war two in some horrific
instances where they figured that the younger,
stronger soldiers would be out surviving the
older ones and they found the inverse was
true because the older ones had developed these
cognitive resiliencies and they look at, and
they say, you know, my, my second divorce was
worse than this, right?
Like, whereas a young guys in there, this is
a worst thing that's ever happened to them.
And you know, again, going back to the
policing and I don't mean to bore people by talking
about, but it's what I know, what I've been
around in a lot of cases.
Um, some of the, the crazier stuff that I've
been involved in while I was on duty, I would have
rather been surrounded by, you know, a bunch of
gray haired, fat guys, you know, that, uh, could
keep their wits about them than the strongest
fittest, you know.
Right.
That are there.
And, and I hate to say that and no disrespect
to people who maintain a high level of physical
fitness and everything else, but gray hair
and some experience can sometimes be a little
bit better, even though you don't think they
have the physical, uh, abilities, but.
A couple other things like, you know,
immediately after, if the thing that happened
is big enough and almost everything is
big enough today, it's going to hit the media.
And then you're going to have a
whole bunch of people armchair quarterback,
what you did.
Right.
Doing podcast, funny enough, people armchair
quarterback what you say.
Yeah, they do.
And you know, it's as a person who tries to pride
himself in the ability to communicate things,
sometimes you're not communicating, you know,
your point correctly, or the other person
wants to take something tangentially away.
Sure.
And then you, you, you know, your dander gets
up when you go, does this person just not get it?
Did I not communicate everything correctly?
And they're never, we're never gonna make
everybody happy, but yeah, if you've been in
it and all of a sudden, and this happened,
listening on the radio the next day to a chief
of police, it wasn't really a chief of police
because that organization never had them, is
being interviewed on the local radio station.
And he's telling everybody about, you
know, all the things that the officer involved in
the shooting yesterday would be feeling and
everything else, and I'm going, you know,
you weren't there.
Right.
You weren't there.
And I had the opportunity to track that guy down.
After I had done my, you know period of time
off, he happened to be making a presentation
on that very subject.
And I made a point of going and I went
up to him afterwards and I says, you know,
you've been talking a lot about this stuff.
You talked about me, you never met me, you
never interviewed me, you weren't at the scene.
And you made a whole bunch of things
into factual points.
Yes.
That weren't factual.
And I think that is human nature.
Oh!
You want to fill in the blanks, right.
Totally.
But it's so difficult for the person who
is in it for the survivor of the event.
Who knows exactly what went on.
Right.
And it comes down to.
And when we talk about being a witness to our
own event, and maybe we're not the best and
me being a third-party witness watching would
be better, but maybe not the most reliable as
well, even video cameras are being shown to be
an unreliable witness in certain circumstances.
I remember I was at a conference and there
was some guys that are doing some high-level
forensics work with video and looking at about
the frame rate and lost frames and the speed
that it goes at and end.
It can actually tell a different story than
what really happens.
So I guess what I'm trying to get at
with all of this is, everybody's different.
Everyone's going to have different resiliencies.
Everyone's going to find themselves in a situation
maybe they leave and it means nothing to them.
Or maybe it's a worst thing in the world to
them, whatever it is, this critical incident
stress that they're feeling is a natural
physiological response to an unnatural event.
And that's it.
And they should just simply accept that for
it, what it is, how I'm feeling right now,
whether it's the guilt, whether it's the anger,
whether it's a depression or whatever it might be.
Hey, this is actually pretty natural in the
same way is if I got a hammer to my knee
cap and that hurts, is a natural response.
And everyone's going to be a little different
in how that reacts.
Correct.
And I got a funny story on that one.
But if you get that hammer to the kneecap,
do you just go home and put some ice on it or
do you go get x-rays and get a doctor to look
at it and tell you to put it back together?
Right.
And this is the thing your emotions may not be
good enough just to put a little bit of ice on it.
And the underlying thing of a very high
level stress incident to you is it's, it's
gotta be dealt with.
It's got, it and, and.
And the sooner the better.
Correct.
And so, and you're, you're, you're going to
go forward and you're going to listen to that
person, the right person as well, pick and choose.
Okay.
It's it's like, um, you know, do some reviews on,
on who the person is, you know, you, you don't want
to go to, you know, uh, uh, a particular field of
study psychologist that doesn't deal with post
critical incident stress.
I mean, you know, the Randy Mackoffs,
the Georgia Nemetz, those type of people.
Right.
They know.
Right.
They are the ones that you'll.
And both of them happened to work with police.
Yeah.
Police.
And that's where, you know, we gotta be
upfront about this.
The people in the military, people in
the police, um, all the first responders are
much more likely to have experienced this stuff.
And, and, and, and, and that's the thing.
So, you know, reach out to these people, um.
The one point on that though, if,
if I can quickly.
One of many.
The one of many.
If I can quickly interject is, quite
often, I find that the, an, a person who finds
themselves in a situation like this will look and
say, well, I'm not a, I'm not a police officer.
I don't see the atrocities that
they see, I'm not a soldier, I haven't
seen the atrocities that they've seen.
Regardless of your background, whatever the
effects you're feeling could be the exact same
as what somebody has seen an atrocity to
something, the effects that are having on your
mind and your body.
And there is there's one story that I read
talking about PTSD uh, I don't know if we
talked about this one before Paul, the, uh,
the chocolate bar eater.
Have you heard this one?
Nope.
Okay.
So this guy goes he's in the states.
He goes into a corner store and he gets
himself a chocolate bar, gets halfway
through the chocolate bar before he realizes
it's full of maggots.
Okay.
Goes to the shopkeeper, says chocolate bar's
got maggots in it, I'm pretty revolted.
Shop keeps us, sorry, here's a refund,
get yourself another chocolate bar, whatever,
have a good day.
The guys good, he goes home.
But then he starts having nightmares and
dreams about magots being in his food.
And then he says he doesn't want to go
to church anymore.
Cause he figures everyone's going to
be talking about him and laughing at him.
He's humiliated as the magot eater.
Right.
And then he's having these recurring thoughts.
He's having avoidance of things that
he usually likes.
He's having depression, all off of eating
something that some people in the world would
readily eat anyways.
Right.
Just worms, larva, maggots, whatever
it might be.
You or I might look at this and say,
that's nothing, but how that affected this
person exhibited all the signs of PTSD.
So if somebody listening to this finds themselves
in a situation, then they say, well, I don't, I'm
embarrassed to go see a doctor, to talk about
somebody because I'm having these thoughts
or it's affecting me in these ways.
I'm feeling grief, fear, guilt, intense anger,
irritability, chronic anxiety, apprehension,
or, or depression.
And yes, I'm reading this off of a list right now,
but these are all sort of the emotional things that
that can be happening.
It doesn't matter.
It, no, one's going to think less of you.
You've got to get that addressed.
Absolutely.
Now, and you know, as you're saying that
there's real symptoms and if you're not
trained to recognize these real symptoms,
they're gonna, it's, it's gonna, it's gonna go.
Um, one of the things that was really noted
with people who weren't getting treatment after,
you know, and in the police world and in
today's police world, man is as soon as something
sketchy has occurred while you're working, the
supervisors are there, the managers are on top
of the supervisors to make sure that everybody
gets it addressed.
Guys used to, you know, back in the old days.
And I mean, the old days were when I first
started in the late seventies, you know,
something happened, it was straight to the, you
know, the liquid, um, you know, self-medicate,
and, and let's sit around those, you know, little
tables and we'll talk this out, lots of laughs
and everything else.
Right.
And you know what, it was very reassuring
at the time everybody had a, a good go
with it and so on.
And what happened, uh, with that kind
of treatment for that kind of an incident.
It really had no long lasting effect in
the moment it felt good to have a couple
of drinks, uh, numb yourself a little bit
and, and go home, sleep it off, or do whatever
you were going to do.
But the cumulative effect, if, if you don't
get things treated and this is where, when
you, you, you hear about people like, oh, you
know, they saw something horrible happen and you
know, they didn't really feel that bad about it.
And then they something else, you know, and you
know, the old happen in threes, I really believe
in that things, you know.
So when people say, well, I've seen something
like this, it's never going to happen again.
Oh, boom.
It happens, you know?
And then, yeah.
And then the third time after it's over, they
completely breakdown.
Mm.
And maybe the third time wasn't that big,
but there was something in their psyche that
triggered all this other stuff that they were
holding back and I'm no psychologist or anything
else, but, but we see it again and again in
untreated people, right.
That's the important part being, you know,
unarmed for the next one.
And the only way you're going to get armed and
prepared for the next one is to get that
professional help.
Right.
So we got to tell it and, and nobody
should be ashamed.
And a traumatic event could be seeing
a car accident.
A traumatic event could be seeing somebody fall
off a mountain side while you're rock climbing,
you know, watch somebody fall and get hurt, right.
A traumatic event to some people could be
seeing literally a body being taken out of a, you
know, a drowning victim or something like that.
Sure.
That, you know, you don't need to see that.
And that's one of the things, again, societaly,
we'll see, you know, whole people going, oh
my God, look at that.
There's a yellow blanket over that person,
let's see if we can get a little closer.
No, you don't need to see that.
Leave it.
Don't subject yourself to it anymore then you've
put something in there.
You don't need to wonder about it or
anything else, because it will actually
help you continue on.
You don't need to get close.
You don't need to see blood or
anything like that.
It's, it's shocking how people will come
up and want to take pictures of blood
and everything else.
You don't need that because you were
actually, and especially if you drag a kid up to
see it or anything else.
Right.
You don't know what that does to kids.
So, uh, be um.
That's a good point.
You know, you're not only responsible
in the after-effect for yourself, the
rapid body survey.
You're.
Yeah.
And your emotional wellbeing and physical
well-being, you're responsible for your
loved ones and those that you care for and make
sure that maybe you're not the right person for
them to be talking with.
Right.
And maybe, it's just engrained.
Like, it's like, you don't know how your
kid took it, what they saw and everything
else like that.
And that has happened, you know, a bit of my own
life and everything else.
You don't realize how, you know, emotionally
sensitive your kid might be or how much damage
you can do to your kid by saying, oh, just
toughen up and, you know, get on with it right.
They don't even have to be at the incident.
But they're responding to you after the
incident and how you're dealing with it.
That's a good point.
Um, a couple other things too, and, and, in the,
um, old days when they first started, you know,
in the very experimental days of looking towards
post-traumatic stress and the syndrome or
the disease or disorder that would follow that,
they would tell you, get, get ready for this.
And I did kind of mention this, I think.
You did yes.
But, but truthfully, don't listen to that,
you know, because the self-fulfilling, um.
Prophecies.
Suggestions or prophecies, because
you're, you know, again, you're, you're, you're
not fragile, but you're open to suggestion and.
Yep.
In these things and you think, oh my
God, I've just seen this horrible thing
what's happening next.
And here's how I should respond next.
And you will, and you don't want to do that.
Right.
So, you know, watch that.
Again, if, if you shed a tear.
And you can't sleep about something
you're affected by it.
And if you shed a tear, when you just
think about something after it's happened
a day or two, and you can't sleep a couple
of days afterwards.
You're affected.
Oh yeah.
You know, those are the things that, you
know, you, you've got to reach out and it's
free in our system and it's there, but going
back to it, don't think because you're not an
official that you can't be affected by this
stuff and to go on.
So I think we're good in talking in the
immediate, you know, the self-assessment,
we're talking in the kind of short term of
getting the treatment.
So the long-term, if it was something was being
initiated by a criminal act, you need to expect
that there's going likely to be the requirement
for you to recall everything and maybe to
give evidence in court, um, have your statement
that was provided at the time be reviewed and,
and, and, and that stuff.
And that this becomes another time where you
need to arm yourself for, for a secondary attack.
Because remember, uh, there are lots and lots
of wolves out there and, and another form
of wolf appears to be the person who would
defend them in court.
And you know what the defense lawyer is
just doing their job.
They have no, nothing personal against you
or anything else, but suddenly you're,
you're put up there.
Uh, you're, you're promising to tell
everything the truth and this person's job is to
make you second guess every single thing that
you know that happened.
So in preparation for that court case, talk
to the prosecutor who will be able to give
you, you know, the, the legalities of what
you need to understand about all this.
May, if the prosecutor is particularly good,
give you some, again, arrows in your quiver to
deal with the questions that might be coming up
by maybe running a bit of a mock trial, you
know, without the actual thing happening, all
these sorts of things, but you're ready for
it because peeling the scab off, you know, the
you're just about healed.
There's a scab on there and that court case could
very well pull the scab off and get you thinking
about everything else.
So it's not wrong if that happens and you have an
emotional reaction to recounting what's there.
And it could be two years in our system,
two, three years from the time of the incident.
And that's just for criminal, it
could be civil.
Oh yeah.
Now think.
Eight years later.
Well let's yeah.
Let's talk about the civil, that's
the car accident.
Right.
That's the, you know, the other thing, you
know, you saw somebody slide down a collapsed
escalator in the mall.
Uh, you know, those things will, will come.
So again, being prepared to, you know, have
that return of those emotions and then in
turn dealing with that.
So we, you know, we, we make it so important
that you survived the incident, whatever it is.
But surviving, the aftermath
can be, you know.
It's massive.
Massive.
And that's probably in days of yore where
we slipped up right.
And it was interesting, you know, we saw probably
the first real, you know, in your face is, is the
post Vietnam war time.
When the first world war was fought, our brave
young men, uh, and, and a lot of horses were
shipped off to places unknown, you know, that
we couldn't communicate that well with.
And when we came back, we lauded them as heroes.
And we looked at those guys that were
nervous and shaking and couldn't deal with
things as being cowards.
Right.
But by four and away, those were the guys
that, you know, suffered the greatest effects.
In a lot of other cases, these guys
that went off and they came back, they were
welcomed with open arms.
They were, they were loved for what they
did and, and, you know, affection and
emotion can, you know, um, again, I'm not a
psychologist everyone, there is no doctor
before the Ballard here.
But what I'm saying is it was different times.
The second world war, those guys came back and
we were happy cause they, you know, they, they put,
uh, fascism in its place and they saved people
and they did all sorts of things and we loved
them and there were still guys going to hospital
and they were shaking and they couldn't deal
with whatever, but we didn't hear about that.
Well, there's a support system in society
for these people.
That's right.
That supports.
It's accepted and.
That affection, that love, that, you
know, that welcoming.
It frames how you individually look at
the event differently if you have that support,
if you don't have that support, because
really, or what is it?
Shakespeare?
Uh, w what does he say?
There is neither good, nor bad, but
thinking makes it so.
The way that we look at things or Viktor Frankl,
the fellow who was in the concentration camps,
lost everyone, everyone he loved and he was a
doctor, and he looked at the effects of these
Nazi concentration camps on the psyche of people
while he's in there.
And he used his time as a bit of an
experiment mentally to keep himself rolling.
And he says, how come some people can laugh and
joke, and other people are absolutely falling
apart and they're both in the same situation.
And he came out with what was his famous quote?
The one thing that you can't take from
me is the way that I choose to respond to
what you do to me.
The last of life's great freedoms is one's
ability to choose their own attitude in any
given circumstance.
And so really being able to choose your
own attitude sometimes is predicated on
those around you.
If everyone looks at you as the bad person, or
they look at what you do as a joke in a story that
they tell over beers, perhaps you start looking
at it in the same way.
But you can't allow that to happen.
Let's let's continue on.
So second world war, they come back.
Everything's, you know, there are people clearly
affected, but the majority are welcomed
back Vietnam war.
Right.
These guys, these us soldiers, Marines,
airmen, sailors coming back, they're
called baby killers.
Right.
Ah, you know, huge protests against the war
and without getting into politics, whether that
war was wrong or right.
And look at how long it lasts a day, it lasted
from 1961 or two all the way through, you know, 10
years of this going on.
And it was always kind of a bit of a shadow
war and, and, you know, with the ideals of,
you know, suppressing communism, but never
really fought in the fashion that a powerful
nation like the United States would fight.
It was always sort of fringe methods,
measures, right?
There was no, there was an old overwhelming
defeat of the enemy.
There was no real, um, at the end of it all.
There's no win.
There was no win, there was no completion.
There was no satisfaction that we went and
did the right thing.
And then when we get back, our own people
are, you know, baby killers and, you
know, horrible things.
And that's when we really saw the preponderance of
post-traumatic stress.
Right.
These Vietnam vets that were, you know,
starting to act out and do things and, and go on,
and this is the start.
And then, you know, as we have evolved in our
recognition of, of how the body can be affected,
the mind can be effected by the sort of stuff
we're seeing it better off, but we're still
seeing, um, it happened, but a lot of people
are being prevented from acting out.
Now the thing is it's, it's like so much,
there's so much media attention to anything
like this that happens.
It looks like there's more.
Right.
There isn't more, in fact, there's probably
less of it now because of the treatment, but.
Just gets more attention.
But there's more attention when
it does happen.
And, and th this again is like, you
know, to think, oh my gosh, this is rampant.
It's not, you know, don't, don't, don't
think that a, man, it it's, it's an absolute,
that's going to be the worst situation for me.
That guy had it way worse than what you did
and look what happened to him, you know, to do
the things you could.
You're not gonna be that way as long as you get
some treatment for it and, and do what, what
you know, people ask of you to, to go through.
So, one thing that, uh, if somebody finds himself
in that situation and they're dealing with the
recurring thoughts and they're dealing with the
aftermath and they're dealing with possible
criminal or civil, uh, litigation, uh,
little things that they can do, uh, exercise.
Exercise is huge.
Uh, it releases endorphins that had
gives you a feeling of accomplishment.
It's, uh, your diet eating a little bit
better food is a big, helpful thing.
These are just physical things they can do.
One thing that is really difficult to
do is, um, or diff not difficult to do easy
to do, but difficult for a possible recovery
and that's alcohol.
And so often people will look to the alcohol as
a possible solution and numb it out, but it does
have a compounding effect on the psychological
response to these.
Yeah.
You're just, you know, I, again, do I think, um,
in a team environment.
And when we went through things, did we, you know,
did we go for drinks?
Like after the riot, did we get together
and reminisce?
Yeah, sure.
You know, after a couple of other things that I've
been through, did we?
Yeah.
But is that the answer or the solution?
No, it's not.
I'll tell you one of the most interesting things
that, you know, in a, in a post situation
after the riots in 94, uh, we were having big
debriefings and you were notified that on this
date, you would report to this location, uh, for
the purpose of debriefing after the incident and
the individual that was there, that was directing
the debrief, you know, had everybody sitting
in this big circle and, you know, you're,
you're vulnerable, you're, you know, your
feet are on the floor.
Your arms are not crossed.
You know, he's looking for this sort of stuff.
And we're all looking towards this guy.
And, and he starts saying, you know, you
know, you might feel, uh, all these things,
you know, like, uh, feeling complete and
that you let people down and, and that, you know,
this was like, you might be having nightmares
and all this stuff.
And I still remember this one individual,
you know, she, uh, she said, I don't know about
the rest of the people here, but I feel great.
And, and, and, and you start to see heads start
to nod a little bit.
And then she says, you know, not only do I feel
great, that was like one of the most terrific
moments in my life.
And she went on to say, now it wasn't the fact
that it was a whole sale, you know, attack
on everything that you've ever hated in
your life or anything.
It was like, what was important was in this
group situation that she stood shoulder to
shoulder with all these other people that were
in equally as bad of a situation as she was,
that those people were there and they got
through it together.
And everybody, you know, was okay.
Right.
And that was the again, suppression
in a normal world.
And that's where they were fighting towards
in the beginning of that debriefing was to
tell you should feel or the expected to feel.
And the reaction was, and an acceptance by
everybody there that, you know, what that was okay.
And what a healthy way to deal with it too.
And it was, and it was actually a, what's the
word I want to look for?
Um, a turning point a what's the other
one that they.
Pivot?
Yeah.
Diametrically opposed.
Oh.
No, there's a better one in there.
I'll I'll call I'll think of it.
When, when I haven't been drinking, no,
just kidding, uh, that, that, um, psychologist
said, I got to change the way I'm approaching
this and they did.
And it was just interesting that one
incident, this, this was a huge learning
environment for that psychologist, because
they were never dealing with, you know, couple
hundred people or more that went through these
sessions afterwards.
And you know what, maybe a good
psychologist shouldn't be telling a person
how they should feel.
Maybe they should be asking the question.
And I think that emphasizes a really good
point, which is there's a whole slew of different
professionals out there who are psychiatrists
or psychologists.
If they're not speaking your language,
find somebody else.
Yeah.
And, and that's, you know, doctor shopping
is not uncommon in this day and age
or second opinion.
And, and like I say, if you are in that,
you know, this, this, this treatment doesn't
seem to be working for me, go somewhere else,
you know, go somewhere else and, and see
what they have to say.
I'm always a fan of going to somebody that
might have a little bit of experience in
the subject matter.
Right.
Okay.
I want to have somebody, that's got context on
what I'm talking about and that's a help, you
know, and, and there are people like that.
There are people that, uh, you know, Randy
Mackoff, you know, he, he, he left the police
service, he became a counselor, you know, or
a psycho, you know, and that's his thing, but
he's got that grounding.
So if he's talking to the cops, you
know, he was a cop.
I mean, there are, you know, women who are
psychologists that were rape victims and they
have that grounding.
And they went through all the stages that go on
that that are a part of such a horrible trauma.
You know, the, I mean, what's worse being
murdered or being raped.
My God, you know, a rape victim has to
live it every day.
You know, the murder victim.
It's, it's it, you know, it's horrible.
It's an awful thing, but it's not the same.
And, and if somebody has, has, has walked that mile
ahead of you, you know, it's, it's a lot easier
to take information from them, you know, it
just, I thought, and, and just the way I am,
like, I don't, I don't want to go and I don't
want to go and train for something with somebody
who maybe hasn't even done it themselves.
I would rather, I would go and listen
to somebody who has a bit of experience and
feel better about that.
So that covers a fair bit on the, the after
the after really is.
Check yourself out, check your . Surroundings, make
sure that the threats.
In the immediate.
Done.
Well, the afters in the immediate, in the near
and then in the future.
Right.
Okay.
And the, the near in the future, a lot of
that has to do with how you deal with it in
the immediate, because that can really shape
how the future looks.
You ran your mouth right afterwards to the media.
You're talking about how great you feel and
how, how fast was over.
When in fact video cameras will show it
being a lot longer and contradict you.
And now you look like a liar, maybe just
zipper your mouth up, say what's important
in the time and talk to some professionals.
Yep.
And, and you know what, even if you aren't
directly involved and you do witness
something horrible like that, but you now
have given a statement, you are now in it.
And that's it.
You are like, and, and for, let's go
back to what kind of started this, Travis.
I said, Hey, we're watching all this stuff
on TV and one of the reoccurring statements
is I can't believe it.
Right.
I've never seen anything like it.
So now those people, who were not directly
involved, they were in the nearby, um, are going
to be the people who are givin' statements
perhaps later, are going to be witnesses in court.
And that all could have an effect or
an outcome on you.
If you were part of the direct, if you
were at the, you know, the epicenter
of whatever happens.
So we need to understand that.
And, and again, even talk, let's talk to those
people on the periphery.
If you were emotionally affected by what you saw,
um, take advantage of our, our medical system
and get something for it, you know, get, get, get
the treatment you need when you're givin' your
statement to the cops.
Tell the cop, you know, is it normal that I, you
know, I'm feeling like this afterwards and you
know, the measure of the police officer will, of
course, you know, the, and, and let's, you
know, here's on the back of my business card is
victim's assistance and, and, you know, through
worksafe BC and their agreements and other
things that are out there and available to you get
help, and it's not going to cost you anything.
And I think that's a really good point, asking
for that help from an officer on the scene, is
a statement in itself.
Right.
And I mean, and, and I really want to, at
this point too, not just because I did it
and because my circle of friends extends to
law enforcement, but really they are there,
in most cases to help.
Although sometimes you got to hurt
somebody to help them.
And, and we can't emphasize, you know, that
it, it would be better if that didn't happen, but
that's not all cops do.
You know, these are highly intelligent,
dedicated, and this is for somebody out there,
courageous people, who are willing to leave
their homes every day with a potential, not
coming back to it, to do things for you,
but in the mundane, in the day to day, they
have the information, the skills and the
ability, you know, to genuinely help you out
of these situations.
Hmm.
You know, I always look at police like
any other profession, like any other person
there is going to be the preponderance of
the gross majority of police officers are
people who want to do good and are, have
high ideals and that's why they get into it.
But there are going to be a couple of bad apples,
and there's going to be a couple that are.
Absolutely.
Absolutely exemplary.
But after a while of being a police officer
and dealing with the same things, people, human
nature, it's normal, people stand, tend to
be developed patterns in getting ruts, kind
of like game animals, have game trails for a
reason, cause that's the easy way they've learned
that's where it goes.
And after a certain period of time, it's not
that a police officer could be bad and they
aren't, but they just doing their job, but
they're definitely not out there to
do bad against you.
And there's going to be some that are always
just absolutely striving.
And I find more and more that they are just out
there striving, but the media doesn't really pick
up on those ones do they?
Nope.
They're looking for the bad examples that goes
through and you know, you gotta to remember
absolutely everybody out here that's listening
today has a bad day.
And so if that's the bad day that you met
that cop on, if that was their bad day, you
can't condemn everybody that's out there nor
maybe even that person that you dealt with in
uniform that day, and a complete condemnation
from a one contact thing.
Not, not very good.
And after an incident like this, meeting,
uh, wanting to explain your side, you know,
that you're right.
And you just want to tell the police officer and
you see them treating you in a fashion that maybe
you're a suspect in that that could be difficult
to take, or maybe they're having a bad day and
they just automatically put that black hat on
you and right from the right from the beginning.
Yeah.
That can all be very difficult for people to
understand because they tend to depersonalize
the person in uniform, but they're going
through the same garbage.
Yup, absolutely.
And like I say, you know, you know, when
you're about to give a statement and they stop
you and then they tell you that, you know,
you're not obliged to say anything and anything.
Shut your mouth.
That's exactly right.
And you know, even though you know that I never
did anything wrong.
Shut your mouth.
That's right.
That's what you know, now this is the only
costly thing involved in there is getting a lawyer
involved because that is money, but that's money
well spent, you know, um, because, shut your mouth.
I can't say anything more.
And that's, you know, that, that, that means
that you're being looked at for whatever this is.
Right.
And until circumstances clear you, you need
to prepare yourself.
I want to cooperate with you, but at this
point I need to, you know, have my thoughts
sort of examined.
There's nothing that you can say right
now that you can't better articulate.
Later on.
Tomorrow.
Right.
The next day.
Exactly.
Nothing's changing.
Yeah.
I think, yeah.
Leaving it at that.
I think so.
Okay.
Okay, Paul, thank you very much.
This has been a fantastic series.
We've been getting great feedback from all
the listeners on it.
I really appreciate your unique insight on this.
I don't think it's unique, but it's,
you know, one that I'm willing to talk
about and, and, uh, I'm not right.
Well you've got a unique perspective.
And you can speak from your perspective.
And I appreciate that.
Thank you.
Thanks for the opportunity Travis.