The Burden of the Blue: The importance of police mental health
The atrocities that law enforcement officers witness on a daily basis can have a profound impact on their mental health. Officers are witnesses to the worst of humanity; disturbing images of women beaten by their husbands, dead children and bodies mitigated beyond recognition.
These officers endure trials that no person should ever have to face, yet they continue to leave their homes and families, not knowing if they will return home alive or even return as the same person their loved ones once knew. Therefore, we must prioritize and invest in mental health resources for law enforcement to ensure that the individuals responsible for protecting our lives daily are in a stable and healthy mental state.
Tyre Nichols was beaten, battered and murdered by five law enforcement officers who took an oath to protect their community. Their job was to safeguard the citizens, not to take their lives. I have no sympathy for them, and neither should you — they killed a person who was going about their daily business in cold blood. He could have been you. The question, therefore, is not only whether these officers, and others like them, who commit such atrocities should be held accountable and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law but how we can further prevent such situations in the future.
Taking away the uniform, a police officer is no different from a civilian. The actual difference lies in their mental state. Police have witnessed things that no sane person would ever want to experience or voluntarily choose to see. And they must continue to go out daily, knowing they will likely encounter similar situations.
To prevent further indiscriminate violence by police officers, it is crucial that they are not only equipped with physical protection, such as body armor and firearms, but also with the necessary mental state to protect others. It is well known that individuals who commit acts of violence, such as school shootings or mass killings, are not mentally sound. Unfortunately, the same applies to police officers who commit such heinous acts of violence. With the inordinate power they wield over civilians, we must hold them to a higher standard for their actions but treat their mental state like anyone else’s to ensure they don’t need to be held accountable for anything. This means ensuring they are in the right mind before being deployed in the field.
I am convinced that the officers who brutally attacked Tyre Nichols were mentally ill and unstable. It is incomprehensible that they would beat an innocent man to the brink of death simply because he did not comply with their commands. I have encountered many police officers who have faced situations of a fleeing suspect, and none of them felt compelled to act in the way that these officers in Memphis did. This is not because they are necessarily better people but because they are mentally stronger, or at least haven’t experienced an event or a group of them that has made them mentally unequipped to wear a badge.
Officers need support, too, and a part of that is having healthy relationships with the communities they protect and serve. The job is demanding and taxing, and only some people are willing to accept a position where they may not return home to their loved ones. We all benefit when we’re able to trust one another.
By Armstrong Williams