Mental Health at Center Stage

We see lips moving, but we don't think the message is reaching people who need it:

• Responding to that trauma is now a top challenge for the Chicago Police Department, where alarms are sounding after six officers killed themselves over the last eight months.
  
  Last week, after the most recent suicide, Superintendent Eddie Johnson convened a small meeting of command staff and told them officer wellness was now his priority. To keep neighborhoods safe, his officers need to be healthy, he told the group.
  
  Johnson formed a task force to examine the department’s mental health services, according to his spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi, who was at the meeting.
  After killing an armed suspect, a Chicago cop — and his department — struggle with PTSD
  
  And in a sign of changing attitudes, Johnson also sent his officers a note about the latest death, saying, “we must do everything we can to ensure that our fellow officers have the support needed to get through the challenges of this very difficult job.”

Support? From this administration? Are you joking?

Two years without a Contract (three for supervisors) and no meaningful negotiations. Not to mention that the City only wants to gut Contract protections, making it easier to lose our jobs, which is stressful enough without the added pressure of being fired for offending the "community."

Meaningless training for officers instead of demanding the "community" behave properly - and no meaningful punishment (like prison) when they don't.

Little-to-no opportunity for advancement....unless you possess the proper DNA, are willing to sleep around or service certain persons, or you manage to cheat in a secret study group - again, available only to the chosen or those who choose the appropriate bedroom partner.

And speaking of partners, how about if/when you find someone worth working with, some asshole lieutenant or captain can break up car assignments for activity reasons that no one is willing to put down on paper. At least in the old days, we could bribe the Watch Secretary to work with a regular partner.

Special Ed's "changing attitude" isn't really believable seeing who he has promoted and who he has protected.