After a Shooting, Deputy Overcome with PTSD

My Broken Officer

Training, Treatment Lacking for Cops Suffering with Post Traumatic Post Disorder

by Susan Motes Bentley

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is something I never thought about very much. As a cop’s wife, I had been through several close calls and thought I had run every scenario that might happen to my husband Brandon through my head. PTSD was not one of them.

Then on October 21, 2009, the phone rang.

It was Brandon.
 
“Susan, I’m okay but I had to shoot a guy. I’m okay. I’m okay. I can’t talk, but I wanted to let you know I’m okay.”
I asked, “Are you hurt? Are you okay?”

I told him, “ I love you. I’m on my way.”

He replied, “Susan, I’ve gotta go.”

Then silence.

I called our attorney to ask him to head to Spartanburg. Then I called the principal at our daughters’ school. Then I started to loose it.

I called my Mom. I told her that Brandon shot someone and that I didn’t know what to do. That’s all I could verbalize. I kept crying and trying to get my composure but everything inside was falling apart.

The 45 minute ride took forever. A million things went through my mind. Would he be hunched over on the ground weeping? Would he be screaming? Would he be silent and fall apart once he saw me?

When I saw him he was calm, speaking in a low tone, and smoking. He had no expression. He didn’t seem like he wanted me to hug him or even get close.

He told me he was okay and that he had to go and talk to his supervisors about the incident. I remember him saying, “I don’t know if they will let you stay in there with me.”

Just then another cop came out the door, looked at Brandon, smiled,  and said, “Welcome to the club.”
    My husband did not react or speak. For the next few hours we were separated. I was put in an office with two of Brandon’s supervisors. They must have asked me a hundred times if I needed anything, if I was thirsty, if I was hungry. They told me Brandon was going to be fine.

During that time I had one request. I told them that I needed to know the condition of the man Brandon shot and that if he died I needed to be the one to tell him what happened.

 Again, the officers insisted he would recover.

When we finally got home we hugged our girls tight. Brandon continued to act calm, but it was an eerie calm. I stayed up all night checking the news websites for updates. Then around 5:30 am I read the words that I prayed I would not see. “Man Shot by Deputy Dies.”

I didn’t wake Brandon. The truth was, for him, sleeping had to be far better than the reality that awaited him when he woke up.

The next few days included Brandon’s supervisors visiting the house and phone calls from anyone and everyone including a lot of reporters who wanted to get information. It was like the world was still spinning but we were not moving.

I suggested we go to the shooting range. I thought maybe shooting again would help him. He didn’t want to go. That would be the last day in his life he would ever pick up a firearm.

 It wasn’t until ten days after the shooting that I got a glimpse of what our future might hold. We were downtown for a Halloween celebration with the girls. I could tell Brandon was not as outgoing as usual. Then a balloon popped across the square and he hit the ground.

Stunned, I looked down, checked the girls. and then kneeled next to him. I told him,  “Honey it’s okay. It was a balloon.”

That night while Brandon was sleeping he jumped up, started yelling and hit the floor. Who was this person? What had he been through that was so God awful that he was in this kind of fear? Who was the heartbroken man behind those beautiful hazel eyes?

Things have never been the same. With every day, Brandon became more withdrawn, more hostile, more hopeless. The passion for life that once filled his eyes and soul seemed to have turned to resentment. And he seemed very lonely.

I contacted the Sheriffs Office and begged for help. This Department, that prided itself on being there for their officers and having a number of chaplains available, suddenly could not be bothered with Brandon — their broken officer.

After seeking the help of an attorney, the Sheriff’s Office gave me a name of someone Brandon could talk to. We went to the appointment. As  Brandon started to talk the look on the therapist’s face went from caring to concerned to disbelief.

At some point she stopped and said, “I’m so sorry but I don’t deal with trauma, I’m a marriage counselor.”
I knew with every passing day I was losing a little more of the man I married. I had nowhere to turn. I started to feel defeated.

 One day our oldest daughter told me some of the kids at school were saying her father was a coward because he wasn’t back to work yet. I tried to console her. I told her that we lived in a small town and that people would always talk but that her father was not a coward and that she should be proud of him. I said that he did what he had to do on that terrible day so he could come home safely to his family.

I frantically searched online for a doctor who could help Brandon. I prayed that God would help me find someone quickly. Brandon was slipping away from us into a very dark place.

I will always believe that God came through for us. He directed us to the doorstep of Post Trauma Resources and Doctors Larry Bergman and Dr. Roger Deal. Without their advice and counsel Brandon would not be alive today.

Since 2009 both men have been there helping Brandon through the darkness, over the mountains, through the valleys. During the hardest parts of his journey, they have been a literal lifeline.

As Brandon’s wife, my life stopped in so many ways on that day in 2009. Working outside of the home was not an option. I couldn’t leave the girls alone with Brandon because he was so unpredictable. And it seemed important to stay close to my husband. I was worried he would slip back into an even darker place than he already was and that he could easily hurt himself or even worse.

 All this made me feel like an overprotective mother trying to shield Brandon from anything that could trigger those dark thoughts.
I never could have imagined the hell that PTSD would be. Foolishly I had always thought it was something that happened to traumatized war veterans.

Brandon was not informed about the dangers of PTSD while attending the South Carolina Law Enforcement Academy. He had never had one training class or even as much as a conversation with another officer about the very real threat of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Since the shooting, Brandon has cut himself, burned himself and attempted suicide.  The images of what he saw during his law enforcement career haunt him. It’s not just that one call where he was forced to shoot someone. It’s all the calls, all the images, all the experiences that came before.

Like the call with a father frantically screaming over his child’s lifeless body. Brandon did CPR until the EMS people arrived and took over. He knew there was no way to bring that baby back and he was devastated.
Or the time a woman laid all her personal information neatly out on her kitchen counter — every bank account and every lock box. She had also cleaned her home top to bottom. Then she shot herself in the heart.

The suicides, homicides, domestic disputes, traffic stops where he never knew if the driver had a gun, take their toll. The crying children who could not be comforted, the innocent who could not be rescued.
So much pain, so much horror, so much trauma.

PTSD brings with it a paralyzing fear and vivid memories of all those traumatic calls. There are night terrors that lead to incontinence. There’s paranoia, possessiveness, and utter hopelessness which naturallyleads to a person to think that suicide may be their best option.

This has been our journey. It has defined who we are as a family. And we are not alone. There are people all over this country and throughout the world who are suffering; suffering I truly believe might have been prevented had there been some training in the academy or on the job training on PTSD and suicide prevention.

 “Police PTSD-The Hope Project,” is a Facebook support group I began because of the lack of support available for Brandon, me and our daughters. The reaction to the Facebook page has proven to me that PTSD is pervasive and a silent killer among our law enforcement officers who not only put their lives on the line everyday but also routinely deal with situations that can scar them badly.

Statistics show that more officers commit suicide each year than are killed in the line of duty which makes it imperative that we do more to  prevent and treat PTSD.

Education about the issue should be offered to all our officers before they serve one day out on the street. Mandatory training classes should be held regularly as well as mandatory counseling sessions for the officers and the families of officers who are suffering.

The single most important we can do for people who go through something like Brandon did, is to provide immediate help afterwards.

The stigma has to be erased and that begins at the top. Our chiefs and sheriffs have to show that they understand that PTSD is a very real and tragic reality that their officers and deputies will likely face during their careers.

The condition needs to be seen for what it really is — a disabling disorder that can happen to anyone. It is just as real as a bullet wound, if not more so.

To date no agency in South Carolina has mandatory training on the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and there is no class offered during initial training at the state’s Academy.

The time for change is now, Every second that goes by without taking action means that our officers could experience a trauma on the job, develop PTSD, and not be as lucky as we were to find the right doctors.
The tragedy is that they may start to think that suicide is their best option and that is something we just can’t accept.

Susan Motes Bentley is the founder of “Police PTSD-The Hope Project” and the wife of retired and disabled Deputy Brandon T. Bentley.