Officers, families experiencing psychological toll

The news of execution-style killings of police officers and intense public scrutiny over split-second decisions can impact officers psychologically, experts say.

“It ups the fear that police officers have, particularly if the incidents are considered assassinations or ambushes,” police psychologist Ellen Kirschman said. “And don’t forget — please — the families who don’t have the kind of training that police officers do when this happens. It’s really frightening.”

Kirschman, author of “I Love a Cop: What Police Families Need to Know,” noted the “widespread negative feelings” towards police officers inhibit them.

“The idea in general that there are people out there sort of hunting with all the cellphone cameras, that if you take steps to protect yourself you’re liable to wind up in court,” she said, citing cases of “officers compromising their own safety to avoid getting killed or badly damaged because they were trying to avoid being a headline or subject of a lawsuit.”

Police officers everywhere share a unique bond, Kirschman noted.

“They identify with each other,” Kirschman said. “When a police officer is killed in Boston, officers in California can identify with that whole situation, as can their families.”

The execution-style killing of Weymouth police Sgt. Michael Chesna on Sunday was the third police killing in New England in three months.

“It hits home,” Chelsea police Chief Brian Kyes said. “It really stays with you ... it makes family members of police officers give them an extra hug before they go to work in the morning.”

Former Boston police Commissioner Edward F. Davis noted a high suicide rate among police, comparing it to combat veterans. The Ruderman Family Foundation reports 140 police officers committed suicide in 2017.

“It’s really a serious problem that as a profession we need to pay closer attention to,” Davis said. “I think it’s largely due to the stress of the day-to-day operations in a police department — the things that they see on the street — they’re asked to deal with very complex and tragic situations day in and day out. All of those things take a toll.”