Letter: Please consider listening to officers’ concerns

Note: This is a copy of a February 2 letter from former Oak Ridge Police Department Officer Randy Myers to the City Council.

I wanted to respond briefly to the articles that have been written about the administration of the Oak Ridge Police Department. My comments are not directed at any one individual but only at the situation itself.

I’ve been in law enforcement for 25 years now. I know firsthand the stress that an administration can cause on their officers, but I wanted to point out something that most either do not know or just won’t bring it out.

No matter what agency you work for, there are issues within that department that some officer will complain about, or they simply just do not like. They may complain a little, but for the most part they move on with their life.

I have an International Ministry for police officers, and one of the things we talk about is the stress that law enforcements officers face on a daily basis. On our website, there is a question that is asked of all officers. The question is: “As an officer, what causes you the most stress?” Out of the officers that have answered that question, 3 to 1 say “Administration/Supervisors” cause the most stress, followed by “Missing family events because of work.” This simply should not be, but it is reality.

Police officers deal with stress on a daily basis. It comes with the job and they know that, but my point is this: The situation at ORPD may in fact be similar to other agencies across the nation, but if that situation is now to the point that officers and/or former officers are beginning to speak out in public about these issues, maybe someone in power needs to wake up and take a look. In my opinion, officers are crying out for help, and it seems to be falling on deaf ears.

In the past, I was a part of an agency that called the EEOC to do a presentation. In that presentation, the EEOC talked about a “Toxic Work Environment” and listed six characteristics and said, “If an agency has any three of the six characteristics inside the agency, then that agency has a “toxic environment.” At the time I was at that particular agency, that agency had all six characteristics of a “toxic environment,” and yet no one said a thing and nothing was changed in that agency!

I want to encourage both the police administration and the City Council to not just hear the words that are being said but listen to the hearts that are crying out for help.

Officers are already dealing with enough stress on a daily basis. They deal with stress on the streets daily, they deal with stress in their home life on a daily basis as well. Now, they’re asked to deal with stress in their workplace as well? To me, officers deal with enough stress without the added and unnecessary stress in the work place. They must have “an out.”

Statistics show that too much stress, with no way to vent, can push people (in law enforcement or not) to measures they wouldn’t normally take. If officers are continually asked to deal with the stress on all three levels on a continual basis, with no way to relieve the pressure, my fear is that there will be consequences not just for the department as a whole but also for the families of the officers who are affected.

Those of us who are close to the law enforcement profession know that police suicides are real and yet needless. Across the nation, we lose approximately 450 officers a year to suicide. Both the administration and the city council, can help prevent at least one area of the stresses that officers face on a daily basis simply by just listening and addressing the officers’ issues of concerns.

Please consider listening to them. Even if, in your eyes, there is no basis for their concerns, they are crying out for a reason. What is that reason? Who will hear their cry?

Respectfully Submitted,

Randy Myers