Wear Positivity Memories Like Armor: Counterbalance to a Crazy World

By Lt. Joseph Pangaro CPM, CSO

In 2001, after the attacks on the World Trade Center, I was a detective with 16 years on the job. From my perspective, the profession I was in was one of the best things a person could do for a career I could imagine. The public thought very highly of us law enforcement types, thanks to the brave officers who died trying to save lives in the tower collapses.

Their act of bravery and dedication to duty exemplified what every cop already knew, but the public had to be reminded of from time to time; that the men and women of law enforcement don’t just talk about service, honor and duty, they live it every day with sacrifice to the point of death.

The public opinion of law enforcement was at an all-time high. People openly thanked you for your service with a smile on their faces and you could feel that it was genuine. We officers felt pride in our work and chosen profession and there was an overall consensus that our work was important to the entire country. It was, and still is no matter the current slump in public opinion we see today.

We felt that our mission to protect the innocent and weak from the criminals that plagued our cities and towns was one fully supported, funded and easily understood. In fact, proactively targeting criminals as individuals or groups was the right thing to do; it made for a safer society for everyone. Yes, those were the days.

Fast forward to today.

Through the slow drip of time and circumstance, media coverage and the ascendency of “woke” thinking and political correctness we find ourselves in a totally different place when it comes to public opinion.

The illegal and highly inappropriate acts of a few of us in our ranks has added steam to the anti-police culture shift we are all living through currently in modern America. We are the newest scapegoats for society’s ills. As a result, the once-vaunted practice of pro-active policing has now taken on a stigma of advancing multiple sets of “Anti” behavior, even where no such real belief exists. Of course, I mean the perception that law enforcement officers negatively target certain groups of our citizens for racial, ethnic, religious or socio-economic reasons.

None of that is true. I have never attended a meeting where we sat around before a shift and decided who we wanted to “get” that day to satisfy our hatred or feelings of superiority. In fact, the belief that we do that kind of thing at all is left high and dry by the fact that our ranks are now very diverse and every group they think we hate is now represented in our profession at every level and we stand as brothers and sisters in blue.

Nonetheless, that belief exists and is repeated by many people who have ulterior motives for their anti-police rhetoric, or can gin up ratings on their TV shows or otherwise use the made-up conflict between law enforcement and the public we serve to suit their own needs, personal and political.

This struggle is real and the internal conflict it has caused for the public and for every member of law enforcement to one degree or another is detrimental to our country on a large scale and to each human being on the small scale. The anger directed toward our law enforcement community members can cause a form of PTSD. It is a constant attack on us, albeit it in small and occasionally large doses, but the damage can and is being done.

The open conversation about the “Ferguson effect,” that being officers abandoning proactive police work for a reactive response status, is common among our ranks and is a symptom of the PTSD and damage to our mission that is taking place. What the public is missing is the reality that it is pro-active police work that keeps us all safe in our communities. Without it, crime rises as we are seeing every day.

So, if we accept this premise we have to ask a few questions: One, is this sustainable? Can our society survive where crime runs rampant, and criminals have the advantage? And two, can our officers survive this constant barrage of mental and physical attack?

The answer to both, I posit, is no.

Our society cannot sustain itself if we continue on the road we are on. But the solution to this societal downturn is a larger question for every citizen and requires a response that only the people of the nation can answer and solve by the choices they make.

As for our law enforcement community we do have some options.

We cannot or will not quit in droves. Some may leave the profession as we have seen, but we will not leave in numbers significant enough to make a real difference. What we can do is understand the concept of creating a counterbalance to the negativity we may be feeling as individuals so we can survive the adverse impact of the attack on us as law enforcement officers and people.

We create a counterbalance by understanding the concept of counterbalance as it relates to human emotions and perceptions we feel internally.

A counterbalance is a concept that if we think of the scales of justice, you know, all the statues we see of Lady Liberty and justice with the blindfold and the scales. If one side of her scales is over-filled they list in that direction, but if both sides are filled then they reach equilibrium and are in balance; same thing here.

There are some old sayings that offer some insight as well- “Junk in – Junk out”, or “you are what you eat,” I’ll offer a new one: “If all you hear, see, and feel about yourself and your profession is negative, you will be negative,” So the key here is counterbalance the negative we hear with positives so we can be leveled.

We could add to our lives more positive things such as church or religious activity, more time with friends (and not talk about work), more time with family, develop or explore a new hobby or an old one you have not had time for, and the dreaded one - find a counselor and talk about how this negativity has affected you.

There are many ways to counterbalance ourselves and build up resiliency, the new buzz word for “dealing with it.” No matter what you choose, it helps to choose something because we can’t wallow in it. We must stop listening to the news and dwelling on the difficulties. Think about the people you have helped over the course of your career. Even if you have a hard time coming up with incidents, the reality is you have helped some people and some of them in significant ways you many never know, but trust me you have. These are all positives that help us displace the negatives and buoy our spirits. We need to do this.

In 2019, the statistics showed 14 people per 100,000 die by suicide each year. For law enforcement the number is 17 per 100,000, higher than any other profession. That is a dangerous statistic for each of us because that statistic in based on active-duty law enforcement officers and doesn’t include the retired people who kill themselves in their retirement years. In the COVID year of 2020, the numbers were higher for every group. It’s like playing Russian roulette and it’s not a game we need to participate in.

I won’t dwell on law enforcement suicide other than to identify a bridge between PTSD, suicide and living an unbalanced life of stress. The connective tissue here is obvious and we should all take note of it and take a personal stake in it as well as for our profession.

We must support the idea of creating counterbalance personally and professionally since our lives and mental health depends on it. It is something in our grasp if we seek the positive and work hard at it.

Ours is a noble profession, one that society needs. Without us, the Blue line of law enforcement, our society will crumble, and they know it as well as we do.

In my 30-plus years in this profession I have seen the pendulum swing both ways, as we were regarded as heroes to zeros and then back again. As sure as the sun rises, law enforcement will regain its place of esteem and respect. It is inevitable because we represent good, decency and justice and evil will always be present. Someday, in some way, evil will rise again and people will clamor for the centurions in Blue and we will, as we always have, answer the call, come to the rescue and do our duty and society will be grateful we are on watch at our posts.

Hang in my brothers and sisters, things will get better. In the meantime, find the positives where you can and wear them like armor and counterbalance the negative at every turn.

Let me know what you think. JPangaro@TrueSecurityDesign.com