Police officers can face unique demands on the job

Police officers can face unique demands on the job
Police officers can face unique demands on the job

Police officers can face unique demands on the job

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Last week, a disturbing video surfaced of Chicago police officers physically and verbally abusing a woman they were attempting to take into custody in July of 2013. In the wake of the video’s release, Chicago Police Superintendent Gerry McCarthy is quoted as saying “…as human beings, we make mistakes, everybody has bad days. And unfortunately, we’re held to a standard where we’re not allowed to have bad days.” There’s no doubt about it, people can have bad days, and Chicago cops have one of the toughest jobs around. They see and deal with things every day that-thankfully-most of us will never have to see and deal with. That must cause a great amount of mental stress. So in the wake of this incident., we wanted to know how cops recognize-and then deal-with that stress. Dr. ML Dantzker is a Professor, Dept of Criminal Justice at the University of Texas, Pan-American, and he runs MLD Mental Health Services of South Texas. Dr. Dantzker spent more than a decade in law enforcement, and has been teaching criminal justice for nearly 25 years, and he’s a Certified Forensic Mental Health Examiner. Photo: Flickr/Chicago Man