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The Police Will Have Someone To Call... But What About The Rest Of Us?

By David Packman

News today is that the "SafeCallNow" bill, a bill seeking to establish a taxpayer funded program for officers to confidentially get counseling for stress-related problems, has made it's way out of the Washington state senate on a unanimous vote.

Not only will that bill, Senate bill 5131, establish a way for officers to confidentially get therapy for stress-related disorders like alcoholism, domestic violence, or anger management issues, it also gives off-duty officers a chance at more supplementary income as the hot-line it establishes for officers to call will be staffed by off-duty officers trained in crisis management.

I've mentioned this bill before when it was first proposed and in committee and I stated that I'm not really opposed to this program. After all, I think it has some hope of possibly reducing incidents of police brutality that are caused by officers who have difficulties controlling themselves due to their inabilities to properly deal with stress.

But... I still can't help but wonder, with all these great taxpayer funded programs to help traumatized cops, where are the state-funded programs that help people that they traumatized? Heck, where are the privately run or charity-based programs for victims of police misconduct?

None exist.

Victims of police misconduct have no hot-line, no support group, no advocate groups, no nothing... we're just left with the pain and debt incurred by the irresponsible actions of those police officers that get immunity from legal action, taxpayer sponsored support groups, hot-lines, charities, government assistance, and soon... complete confidentiality.

Heck, we're not even considered victims of crime so we can't even get support from government sponsored crime victims support programs to help us pay for medical bills and therapy.

Sure, I'm not opposed to getting police officers who have difficulty coping with stress the help they need but, up to now, have often refused to seek. But, if we're paying to help stressed out officers, why aren't we also paying to help the people that they harm as well?

Full post as published by Injustice in Seattle on March 09, 2009 (boomark / email).