Unruly airline passenger slugged with wine bottle

Flight attendants and several passengers struggled to controlman.

DALLAS — Only hours after the ambush that killed fiveDallas lawenforcement officers, mental health experts began thinking ahead, searching for ways to ease the long-term effects of the attack on the men and women who patrol the nation’s ninth-largest city.

Police psychologists in Dallas were quickly joined by counselors from the Houston and Los Angeles police departments, the FBI and the federal air marshals service. As she watched the July 7, 2016, assault unfold on the news, Dallas philanthropist Lyda Hill thought of research she had funded to help returning combat veterans. Maybe it could help police too.

A year later, Dallas officers are still grieving, but scores of them have received or are on track to receive specialized training in “mindfulness” and other stress-management techniques that aim to teach police how to better understand and control their emotions, both on and off the job.

“One of the most powerful things you can do is teach people that it’s OK to be human. It’s not possible towalk through this profession and come out unscarred. It’s a difficult, difficult walk to be a police officer,” said Richard Goerling, a police lieutenant in Hillsboro, Ore., who teaches the mindfulness training.

The late-night ambush happened during a downtown protest against police brutality. A black Army veteran seeking revenge for police shootings elsewhere that killed or wounded black men opened fire on the officers, killing four from the Dallas Police Department and another from a transit agency.

By early the next morning, the sniper, Micah Johnson, was dead, killed after police deployed a bombcarrying robot.

A month later, then-Police Chief David Brown told the Dallas City Council that he planned to increase the mental health services available for officers.

Brown, who is now retired, remembered taking a call from the Oakland, Calif., police chief, whose department had also endured the killing of more than one officer in the line of duty.

The Oakland chief emphasized the importance of offering mental health services.

Officers “may not seek it out right away, but it’s a long-term impact on people,” Brown said in a recent interview.

Hill provided money to pay for instruction in mindfulness and in another system known as cognitive training for 500 Dallas officers over the next year. The Center for Brain Health at the University of Texas at Dallas plans to study the effects of the training on their mental and physical health, and their job performance.

Goerling, who has been a leader inmindfulness training for the last decade, said traditional stress management often does not work for police.

“You aren’t going to stop the stress, but you are able to change how you respond to it,” he said.

When police first learn about the program, there’s often a misconception that it’s “hippies and granola people” making them chant in a circle, said Jenny Howland, a clinical psychologist and program manager for the mindfulness initiative at the brain center.

Instead, she explained, the goal is to provide officers with tools “to essentially reduce their stress and optimize their performance,” she said.

“When you’re stressed, your mind wanders,” she said. “You aren’t focusing,” which can lead to performance failures and poor decisions.

Senior Cpl. Frederick Frazier encourages fellow officers to set aside skepticism. He said the attack is “a massive wound” that still brings out anger and sorrow in many of his colleagues.

Frazier is chairman of the Dallas chapter of The Assist the Officer Foundation, a nonprofit that helps officers injured or families of officers killed in the line of duty. Since the slayings, the group has doubled the number of counselors it provides and tripled the payments for appointments.