Transcriber: Agostina Solís
Reviewer: Eunice Tan Inspiring things are happening
in policing today. Thirty years ago, I was a rookie police officer
dispatched to a call for service - came in from a frantic caller that said, "My dad has been suffering
with terminal cancer. My mom's been caring for him, and tonight she just needed a break. So she and I went out
for a short period of time, and when we came home, we found him bleeding at the door, slumped against the door. He's got a gun in his hand, and I think he killed himself. We need your help. We need your help now." I went to that call, as I was trained,
with other officers. And, in fact, the man had killed himself. And as part of the process, I went next door to where it was reported that the man's wife
and daughter were resting. And when I went there, I knelt beside the woman because she was - the man's wife was laid out on the carpet
with her head on a pillow. And I knelt beside her, and I held her hand and looked in her eye, and she said, "He's gone, isn't he?" And I said, "Yes, he is." And I sat there with her
in her grief and in her suffering for quite some time until even there, there was nothing more that I could do. I went back to that scene
where the man had killed himself, and the coroner was removing his body. And as I approached,
an officer yelled, "Moir." I looked, and he said, "Grab the hose." Without asking why, I grabbed that hose as he grabbed a bucket
and soap and a broom. And we cleaned that door, and we cleaned those steps, and we cleaned that driveway of the physical remnants
of the tragedy that had occurred there. Now, that part wasn't in
any police rule book; that wasn't part of the police academy. That was clearly
in the rule book of humanity. And that's what we did that day. Well, I left that scene
because I heard the dispatcher saying they've got calls pending
and calls pending, and I couldn't spend any more time there. So I went to my patrol car, and I immediately pushed
the button on the computer and told dispatch
I was available for another call. But the sadness and the stickiness
of the trauma was stuck to me, and it was in me. But I went to that call
because I knew how I was trained: I was trained to suck it up and drive on. I went to the next call,
and the next call, and the next call. And I went home with that sadness
and that stickiness of that trauma. Well, in 2018, 148 police officers
were killed in the line of duty. Yet an additional 159 police officers
took their own lives for unknown reasons, but perhaps it was
from calls like I handled. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that there are nearly
900,000 men and women performing as police officers
across this nation. And research shows us and data informs that there are 67 million
face-to-face encounters between a police officer
and a member of the community every year. 67 million opportunities
to do it right or do it wrong. And that alone is a staggering
number of opportunities to influence people, to insert humanity
from a police perspective. And that number alone said to me
that I had to do something more to influence the acute, chronic,
and cumulative toxicity of policing. That number led me to research. I expected to find training. I expected to find something, but I did not expect to find mindfulness. What I found was mindfulness is, in essence, awareness
in the present, free of judgment. If mindfulness can influence the way police officers treat themselves and police officers treat
the communities that we serve, I had to dive into it. Now, I go back to a colleague of mine. Distanced from trauma, a colleague of mine
and I were sitting on a panel, and we were talking
about community policing. And we were talking
about the complexity of policing and the vast number of things
that are laid at the feet of the police in modern policing. And he said, "Syl, it sure is hard to ask
all that we ask of police officers given the corrosive drip of policing." I was taken aback. I said, "The corrosive drip of policing? What are you talking about?" He said, "Think about it. Every call for service of significance
that has trauma is a drip. Violence is a drip. Anger, suffering, death - those are drips. They are corrosive drips. And in mass, we are not buffered against that. It can bore a hole
in the soul of a police officer." I found a practitioner, a man named Richard Goerling who's a lieutenant with the Hillsboro,
Oregon, police department. And Richard is a military veteran. Richard had - he dove into this space. He'd been studying the impact
of meditation and mindfulness on police officers and military folks - those of us that are in the high-stakes
environment of humanity, in the high-stakes environment
where there is chaos. And what he found was incredible potential and promise
in the practices of mindfulness. If we accept it, as we've offered,
that it is awareness in the present - to permit this unfolding experience
before us, free of judgment - it is offered that mindfulness
may just create a pathway for resilience that may cultivate compassion, may just, in some way,
create a presence in an officer where they permit the unfolding experience and they're more tactically sound,
more precise, and more grounded. But mindfulness rests on meditation. And Richard offered that meditation, (Exhales) the practice of the breath, the practice of meditation was the fuel that permitted
mindfulness to occur. So I, a fellow chief and a bunch of cops
went through immersion training, and this is what we found. We found, in fact, there was science and research
to back what we were doing. And in that practice, we discovered that we could influence our response
to different kinds of stimulus. It doesn't require equipment; it just requires you. Mindfulness, as the outgrowth,
could be done while walking, while eating, while sitting in an audience and while standing on a stage, sitting in a chair and in a police car, rolling lights
and siren, to an emergency call for help. I knew my leadership imperative
was to do something. And I suggested that we do this
broadly in policing, can you imagine? The resistance was real! (Laughter) People said to me, actually said to me, "You are going to soften policing. You are going to make it
so the cops lose their edge, and cops are going to die
when you do this woo-woo stuff." (Laughter) I said, "Okay. I disagree - the science informs." And in Tempe, what we did was we first started with a culture of openness and acceptance
to perhaps something different. And it starts with openness, acceptance,
culture, and climate in our organization: what life looks like, sounds like,
feels like in the Tempe police department. Then we sent cops - those real, credible cops
that are the tough, tough cops - sent them to immersion training. Sent folks to peer-coaching training
in mindfulness and meditation. And they came back, and they teach it from the ground up. The management command
and executive team - we went through it as well. So it was a top-down influence
and a groundswell of enthusiasm for this incredible synchronicity in this space that might just prove something. In Tempe, we gave cops
two additional apps, and they could get into Headspace
or Ten Percent Happier for a long-term meditative practice, where they're in space: solo space, together space, team space. They got mindfulness training in briefing, and it was supplemented by the app. Cops started meditating. They could use it
for what I call a "reset": a quick reset between calls for service. Imagine, in Tempe, if a police officer, after a traumatic
or painful or violent event, was given permission
and given a tool to reset. To take a deep breath, (Exhales) and note what was coming up for them, and commit to an awareness in the present, and free themselves of judgment so the next call they go on,
they insert humanity and they are more situationally aware, more able to take in
all of the environment to make a better choice. Our officers are given
permission to do that, and they're given tools to do that. In Tempe, our officers are reporting that through mindful practice,
they're able to take in more data, they're able to get through the chaos
of some high emotional scenes, and they are better suited
to be the calm in chaos when other people are rendered useless. They are able to resolve the scene, often, as they report, with incredible permission
and space and tools to de-escalate. Remarkably, just about a month ago, one of my cops ran up to me, and well, he first hugged me
because I'm a fun-sized chief, and he hugged me. (Laughter) He hugged me, and he said, "Chief! Oh my gosh! I have to tell you something!" I'm like, "Simmer down,
mindful peer coach." (Laughter) And he said, "I have to tell you my truth." He said, "Our commitment
changed something in me. I've got to tell you
about this call for service. The call comes in; neighbors are frantic. They say there's a man with a gun
terrorizing the neighborhood. They give the description, and I thought, 'I'm going.'" This is what he says to me, "I'm going." And he said, "I went into my meditation. I went into my mindful practice. I knew I could breathe. I knew I was going to have
heightened awareness. I knew that I was confident and precise
and clear to take in all this data, and this situation was going
to be better when I left than when I got there." I said, "So what happened?" He said "Okay, so - I found the man, matched a description. I did as I was trained. I ordered him, I said, 'Let me see your hands,
let me see your hands.' The man immediately went
to his waistband." He said, "Chief, in that moment, I thought, 'I am confident and clear. Let it unfold, do not force it.' And the guy threw the gun to the ground." (Exhales) He told me, looked me right in the eyes and said, "Before mindfulness, that would have been
an officer-involved shooting." He said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you
for bringing this to us." He said, "I de-escalated that
because of this practice, because of my commitment to it." That incident alone is proof for me that I need to continue
my commitment in this space, that I need to continue
to reinforce in my organization and broadly in the profession of policing that we may just redefine
what constitutes a threat. We may just refine how officers engage in trauma, how they become resilient, how they engage in the ambiguous
and unpredictable nature of policing. And that call alone, that description alone - there's all the other stuff - but that alone says to me that that, coupled with the most profound
lesson in my professional life - that I'd learned as a young sergeant
here in California - from the work of Viktor Frankl, where Viktor Frankl said, "Between stimulus and response, there is space." There is choice. And between stimulus and response, this space - this is our commitment. This is the space that shows staggering and stunning
potential to influence. And if we, as executives in policing,
push this throughout the profession, we might just change the way
officers view themselves in duty, how they safeguard themselves from the corrosive drip
and the tactical environment. We may just redefine
our interactions with our community. As a potential outgrowth, we may just foster deeper humanity. This entire emphasis of ours is true. It is real. Our communities deserve
us to engage in that space and invest in that space
between stimulus and response. Our officers, the men and women
doing the noble work in policing, deserve it. And this is the potential of mindfulness. And this is the inspiring thing
happening in policing today. Thank you. (Applause)
