Son of slain DART officer Brent Thompson commits suicide

[HCM]

Son of slain DART officer Brent Thompson commits suicide

The son of slain DART Officer Brent Thompson killed himself in an apparent suicide on Monday in Corsicana.

Corsicana police said they found William Thompson, 19, dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound early Monday at a park.

Brent Thompson was one of five officers killed in the deadly July 7, 2016 police ambush in downtown Dallas.

http://www.fox4news.com/news/police-...-kills-himself

RIP

[MichaelD]

Grief does some seriously bad things to some people. Very, very sad thing to have happen to his family.

[NickA]

Damn this is heartbreaking. Prayers going out for the family.
I mentioned in the original thread that I grew up with Brent. Didn't know him that well or anything, but it's a small town so everybody knew everybody. Went to many a childhood birthday party at the park pavilion where this happened. Just...damn.

Sent from my XT1095 using Tapatalk

[voodoo_man]

Support nets are really important for LODD, not just going to the funeral and doing all the showy stuff, like legit giving a damn about the family especially if there are kids involved. The officers that worked with that DART officer should have been keeping an eye on that family. It becomes either ethical responsibility, in my opinion.

[Wayne Dobbs]

And guys,

The really sad thing is, FREE help is available if you're a survivor of crime, either as a victim or affected witness, family member, etc. The Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) provides millions in grant monies to various counseling/victims assistance organizations. If you know of somebody like this in the Dallas area, my wife, Deborah, is the Executive Director of The Counseling Place (www.counselingplace.org). They help thousands of folks that are affected by crime, either directly or as an aforementioned witness, family member, etc. every year. I know for a fact that an outreach to the community affected by these murders was made by TCP when this occurred.

If you know of folks in need in this area, please contact them or contact me and I'll get you in touch with them. There's free and useful help, but you have to roger up and go get it. It drives Debbie nuts when she hears of something like this happening when the offer to help deal with tragedy was made and/or was easily available.

If you know of needs in other areas, get in touch and we'll find somebody that can help them.

The "Blue Wall" on misconduct has gone away. It's time for it to go away on mental health issues in our profession too.

[voodoo_man]

The "Blue Wall" on misconduct has gone away. It's time for it to go away on mental health issues in our profession too.

Unfortunately, and you know this well enough, mental health issues in LE is something which is intentionally pushed off to the side and covered up at any and all given opportunities. It's almost taboo to say so in many places, you know what I am talking about.

[Wayne Dobbs]

I think much of the reluctance to seek help is based on a fear that if we go talk to a mental health professional, we'll be seen as less than manly/capable/bad ass/etc. That's total bullshit, because there is no way that as decent human beings, we will remain unaffected by what we see and deal with day in and day out. Couple that with the political challenges on the job, inside and outside, and it's a near certainty our cup will overflow at some point.

Concerns about confidentiality are also there, but that's not the issue it may have been. I know of one time a local police commander tried to gain information from Debbie about an officer's counseling and was told the following by my gorgeous bride: "Tell him to go fuck himself". The questions ceased...

[Dagga Boy]

I think much of the reluctance to seek help is based on a fear that if we go talk to a mental health professional, we'll be seen as less than manly/capable/bad ass/etc. That's total bullshit, because there is no way that as decent human beings, we will remain unaffected by what we see and deal with day in and day out. Couple that with the political challenges on the job, inside and outside, and it's a near certainty our cup will overflow at some point.

Concerns about confidentiality are also there, but that's not the issue it may have been. I know of one time a local police commander tried to gain information from Debbie about an officer's counseling and was told the following by my gorgeous bride: "Tell him to go fuck himself". The questions ceased...

I refused to even speak a basic "Hi" to the folks they brought in after my shootings. 100% a confidentiality issue. I never trusted that what I said to a person brought in by the department was wholly interested in my best interested versus the agencies. To this day I have zero trust in anything that an agency wants done. With that said, I sure wish many of the folks who have actually "done" and learned how to deal with things could be incorporated into peer counseling or working with specific mental,health professionals. Post shootings and traumatic events I got far more out of calling Uncle Pat, or other Uncle's and Rabbi's than I did from anyone within the system.
It is really a broken system and the government certainly isn't helping. I swear the only interest they really have in mental health stuff for Military and LEO's is to have a means to disarm them permenanetly.
For every case where a police commander requested information from a mental health professional and got somebody like Mrs. Dobbs who told them to Fuck themselves, there were far more who got the info they wanted. The big problem.....the fact that the commander asked.....and he ain't the only one who ever has.

[TGS]

I refused to even speak a basic "Hi" to the folks they brought in after my shootings. 100% a confidentiality issue. I never trusted that what I said to a person brought in by the department was wholly interested in my best interested versus the agencies. To this day I have zero trust in anything that an agency wants done. With that said, I sure wish many of the folks who have actually "done" and learned how to deal with things could be incorporated into peer counseling or working with specific mental,health professionals. Post shootings and traumatic events I got far more out of calling Uncle Pat, or other Uncle's and Rabbi's than I did from anyone within the system.

Peer support. I'm not sure how many agencies do it, but we have a formal peer support program where members attend a 2-day critical incident stress debriefing course. The clinical psychologist that teaches/advises ours focuses on work in the police and fire world and is also on board for a large industrial union that has a death on the job once every 10 working days. Supposedly rates of PTSD are significantly lower for first responders who use a peer support program vs being referred to professional help (otherwise known as an outsider) right away. There were some instances in the past where incidents were handled in a bad way which spawned the program; everything from poorly conducted LODD notifications/injuries to checking up on people that we knew needed help.

Fortunately the guy who runs the program "did it right," and has policy in place that protects both the agent seeking help and the agent giving help.

Anyone with any influence in their agency should look into it and get a formal recommendation up through their chain.

[Wayne Dobbs]

I refused to even speak a basic "Hi" to the folks they brought in after my shootings. 100% a confidentiality issue. I never trusted that what I said to a person brought in by the department was wholly interested in my best interested versus the agencies. To this day I have zero trust in anything that an agency wants done. With that said, I sure wish many of the folks who have actually "done" and learned how to deal with things could be incorporated into peer counseling or working with specific mental,health professionals. Post shootings and traumatic events I got far more out of calling Uncle Pat, or other Uncle's and Rabbi's than I did from anyone within the system.
It is really a broken system and the government certainly isn't helping. I swear the only interest they really have in mental health stuff for Military and LEO's is to have a means to disarm them permenanetly.
For every case where a police commander requested information from a mental health professional and got somebody like Mrs. Dobbs who told them to Fuck themselves, there were far more who got the info they wanted. The big problem.....the fact that the commander asked.....and he ain't the only one who ever has.

Understood. But something that everybody in the blue world should know is that they can seek this help without involving their agency under VOCA, especially if they're in this area.