Why they get angry
There has been so much negative publicity in recent months surrounding the topic of police brutality that I feel compelled to speak out about the issue of not only police anger but first responder anger.
It’s not only the police who deal with anger issues because of their career, but 911 dispatchers, firefighters, paramedics, emergency room personnel, etc. — all those people who deal regularly and intimately with the innocent victims of violence.
I choose to focus more on police because they are in the unique situation of having to apprehend, subdue and deal with the violent criminals who perpetrate these crimes. Let’s face it, cops deal with evil on a regular basis, and more than any of the other first responder professions, they are criticized for their anger.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not in any way trying to justify police brutality. I’m not talking about excuses for first responder anger. I’m talking about the reasons for first responder anger.
As a police and fire chaplain, I am more regularly exposed to the traumas of these professions and hear the stories from behind the scenes. When the public is outraged at horrific crimes, they are getting just a small taste of the anger that first responders feel regularly. I hear some pretty raw anger being expressed over Facebook and letters to the editor by people who only read the story or saw it on the news.
First responders hear it, see it, smell it, taste it, touch it and lose sleep over it. I am outraged at crimes against children, but not like the paramedic who cradled that child in his arms, saw all the injuries and couldn’t save them; not like the police officer who is dealing with the person who caused all those injuries, who should have been someone who was caring for this child; not like the dispatcher who took the call and heard all the chaos as it was unfolding. Dispatchers often hear the last words of a desperate and dying person.
First responders are tough people. You have to be to do their jobs. They are also compassionate people who started their careers with the noble motivation of wanting to help people. What they didn’t expect was to encounter evil regularly and then have to try to make sense of it. This process of trying to process evil is what often makes them very angry.
These tough people don’t wrestle so much with the physical horrors they see, such as broken bones, brutalized bodies or body parts strewn all over the roadway. This is not what keeps them awake at night.
It’s the sound of the mother wailing who just lost her child. It’s the shocked look of a little child who just lost their mother in a traffic accident and is being transported to the hospital by strangers. It’s the tiny shoes left behind at the scene of a horrific traffic accident. This is what ignites and fuels anger in the first responder, who then is sleep-deprived as well as stressed.
Let’s prosecute gross misconduct when we see it. But let’s try to have some understanding and compassion for our heroic first responders who place their lives on the line on a regular basis to ensure our safety.
Let’s try to understand the anger.
Renee D. Godoy
Police and fire chaplain, Hilo