Episode Transcript
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Hi, this is Rachel and recovery. We've got Julie with her. She's
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an officer and she's going to tell
us a little bit about herself. Hi
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Everyone, thanks for having me on
here. Rachel, I'm Julie. I
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am a police officer in the state
of Missouri. I've worked in a few
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different positions in Missouri House, previously
working on the street for a very large
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agency in Missouri, and now I
currently work with juveniles. Okay, we're
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going to go into questions. What
things have changed to help sexual assault in
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the State of Missouri? I've been
very grateful for, you know, the
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fact that police officers can for charges
on behalf of sexual assault victims. A
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lot of these situations the victims are
very nervous about taking any kind of enforcement
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action, even if I could even
save their lives. So in the state
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of Missouri you don't need you know
the victim to say yes, you know,
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prosecute this, you know suspect.
Police can just do that and that's
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common practice for them to do that, regardless of you know what's going on
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with the victim. What kind of
scenarios of domestic abuse situations have you encountered
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during your time as a police officer. Well, I've seeing very, very
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many situations. The most common scenario
I've seen is a very intimate relationship between
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the victim and the suspect and I've
seen, you know, the victim be
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male or female. I've seen same
sex relationships, but where there's victim,
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is victimization, all sorts of family
scenarios. The most common that I have
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seen is that the female victim and
a male offender and usually there is kids
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in the home. They will see. But these situations are extremely dangerous.
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They are statistically the most dangerous call
for law enforcement to go on. This
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is where a lot of times you
will see shots fired and then will be
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kind of physical violence. Here in
Missouri, what I've seen is that,
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you know, when you have the
manpower to do so, it's common practice
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for police always to go to man
to these calls. I say to a
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man it means at least two officers, so you know, one person can
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be engaging the offender and one can
be talking to the victim and kind to
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keep them separate because these situations can
become violent very, very quickly, if
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they are not already violent. Okay, tell us a little bit about your
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experience with survivors of sexual abuse.
What I've seen. I've come across survivors
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of sexual abuse when it was an
adult, you know, some that would
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recognize me as I was going about
my duties as a police saufcer on the
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street. I would see a lot
of gratitude. These victims were run up
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to me little give me a huge
hug with tears in their eyes that are
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just so grateful that someone took action
and was an advocate on their behalf.
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So I've seen just complete thankfulness with
juveniles, I think you know I work
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with juvenils right now and I've seen
them become victims of any kind of sexual
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abuse or, you know, domestic
violence. I think they're they're glad to
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see an adult that's on their side, that's there to, you know,
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help them. So I think that's
that's huge and that's been wonderful for me
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to see. You know, the
after effect what it has been your opinion
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on the court stealing with sexual abuse
and domestic violence. In all honesty,
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this has been the biggest disappointment for
me in my law enforcement career. I've
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been working, you know, in
law enforcement for over seven years now and
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you know, what I've seen is
that there is not enough long term response
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by the courts, by our judicial
system to protect survivors of all sorts of
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offenses, but especially domestic violence.
I've never had the personal experience, thankfully,
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but I have seen, you know, after police officers engage in initial
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domestic violence call, they get that
attacker out of the situation, the victim
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is put somewhere safe or they are
safe away from that person that was victimizing
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them, that somehow that attackers able
to get back to them later on,
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whether that's, you know, the
next day or weeks down the road,
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and they're, you know, assaulted
again or even worse, I've heard,
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you know, victims that are killed
by their previous offenders. So they're needs
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to be more long term. Okay, as a female officer, what have
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you experienced or seeing abuse from other
officers? Well, thankfully, I've never
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been, you know, sexually or
physically abused by other officers. You know,
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I know that can happen for sure, but I've never, you know,
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had that happen to me. I've
never heard of it happening. But
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what I have seen quite a bit
is that there's, you know, a
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culture and police work that is very
male oriented. I think currently, right
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now and two thousand and twenty two
female officers make up about twelve percent of
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all law enforcements. So that is
extremely small number, you know, for
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you know our current day and age
well, you will see is that a
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lot of male officers will look down
on female officers just because of our size,
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is usually smaller than them. You
know that you will see a lot
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of biases and stereotypes believed about us
and, you know, different things like
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that. That is very difficult.
It's different to be a femal officer,
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for sure. How toxic is the
work environment that you have been in when
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it comes to abuse? As far
as officers, you know, responding to
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abuse calls? I have not seen
any kind of toxic behavior. I've never
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seen any kind of inappropriate, you
know, joking or even support of any
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kind of attackers behaviors or, you
know, offenders behaviors. I've have not
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seen that. I've, you know, had the good fortune to work with
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very good agencies and very good officers. You know, I have seen abuse
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by law enforcement, you know,
in a different situation, but not in
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a kind of domestic violence calls.
Okay, what do you do for self
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care when dealing with these report like
women reporting these cases? I think that's
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an excellent question. I think a
lot of civilians that maybe don't have a
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lot of connections to law enforcement don't
think about so I really appreciate that question
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because, you know, as a
police officer, I've really had to learn,
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you know, to pay attention to
that. You know, if I
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come from a very difficult call,
you know, that day, especially if
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it's involving a juvenile at seems to
be even worse for me. I am
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a mom and seeing, you know, a child go through something where they're
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victimize is extremely difficult, especially if
it's a sexual offense. But if it's
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something that day, you know,
when I get home from work, I
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need at least, you know,
half an hour to myself to not,
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you know, interact with my family
at all, and I think my husband,
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like we're about to celebrate eight years
together, he's learned just to kind
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of give me that space and just, you know, occupy our son.
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Well, you know, I kind
of get time to myself to be alone,
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whether it's being outside and just kind
of, you know, understanding like
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I've been through something pretty dark I've
seen something really evil and being able to
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be offest as yourself and have timed
yourself. It helps you, you know,
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refocus on, you know, your
own family and not bring that you
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know, toxic or you know evil
situation that you witnessed into your own family.
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Okay, how has this impacted your
mental health when working in these situations?
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I mean, you know, yeah, I think I'm a very outgoing
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person and if I've seen something very
difficult, I become with drawn and that's
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one of the biggest indicators to me
that, you know, I need to
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give myself some self care of.
That's, you know, for me it's
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it's spending time with my animals or
being out in nature doing something I love,
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doing artwork. I know it's artwork, is very hopeful for getting any
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kind of negative thing out of yourself
and being able to, you know,
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understand it, even for your yourself. But yeah, I think, you
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know, I've had to deal with
push my AC stress disorder with some other
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calls I've been on. It wasn't
with domestic violence, but it was with
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being shot at and all, and
I just believing my family could be,
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you know, threatened in that way
and I had to process that. So
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it's been a lot of people coming
alongside me, people that know me really
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will care about me and just being
honest with me, like hey, you
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know, something's not right, and
just a humility thing with me. I
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think a lot officers don't like to
talk about no difficult thing they've seen.
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Part of that is because, I
think, we want to protect those we
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love so they aren't like, you
know, secondhand trauma as well, like,
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you know, we had to deal
with this and now we're going to
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talk about and then have them traumatized
to it's like a protection mindset, but
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also I think there's an element of
pride in there for honest of thinking.
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You know, we don't have to, you know, work through this for
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so hard, a sort tell for
whatever, but you know, you really
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do. It will affect everyone in
different ways. Okay, two survivors out
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there. What advice would you want
to give them as a police officer,
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as a police officer of the you
know, common thing I've seen is that
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a lot of these situations, the
victims, you know, had this kind
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of gut instinct in them that something
was wrong, that they you know,
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we're being victimized, but you know, they kind of push those instincts away,
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you know, like hey, you
know, we can work through this
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or we can keep going. You
know, what I've learned as a police
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officer is that when you have any
kind of gut instinct, it's usually right,
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you know, whether you think like
you're in danger, or you think
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someone is going to endanger your family
or children, or you just think like
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you're being mistreated, like I've never
heard any kind of situation where that wasn't
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accurate, that wasn't on point,
and I've learned a trust that myself and
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situations like if I feel, you
know, the hair on the back of
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my neck kind of standing up,
but I think, Hey, I need
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to be more on guard, like
there's something here. So I would say,
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you know, always trust your instincts
and you know, after having survived
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a situation like that, you know
care about you know yourself. Give yourself
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that self care and, you know, move forward. Don't let what happened
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to you define your life as a
police officer. Sir, would you say
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your work supports you on mental health
and take the time you need to heal
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from certain situation, cases and things. You know, I think that's a
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huge weakness and law enforcement currently,
I would say no. You know,
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obviously if you're injured on duty,
you're given that time. Like a physical
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injury or broken arm or broken leg
or shot or something, you have that
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time to recover physically. But I
think that's hugely unaddressed in law enforcement is
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emotional wounds that we, you know, do take on from the dark calls
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that we see, and I think
that there is not enough time in law
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enforcement to be able to recover from
that. As many officers as we've seen
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killed in the line of duty every
year. The biggest threat to law enforcements
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actually suicide, is officers killing themselves, and I think mental health is hugely
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unaddressed in, you know, law
enforcement. I think that does need to
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be taken much more seriously than it
is and I do believe allstors do need
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time to be able to process,
you know, the situations like face.
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I guess what are patterns that you
have noticed personally when working with sexual abuse
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and domestic pilence, with both victims
and perpetrators? Well seen is, yeah,
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US, usually and intimate relationship,
usually a sexual relationship between the victim
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and, you know, the perpetrator, and those situations it usually is a
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family environment. I A lot of
times kids are involved and once I said
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the all these things. These are
not, you know, the rule,
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but it is a generalization that I
commonly see. And you know, the
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victims often stay in these situations because
they want to protect that family unit,
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they want to see things go well
and, you know, keep their family
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hole in their minds, so they
will remain in a dangerous situation just for
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that goal. A lot of times
that these perpetrators, you will see that
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there is some kind of substance Abu
some kind of addiction of some kind,
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whether that's alcoholism, can you know, legal substances, pornography, and you
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will see quite a huge indicator by
those perpetuors like a love of power,
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whether that's emotional power, financial power, physical power, sexual power over their
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victims are all the above. You
know, there's a real love of power
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and commonly with the victims I will
see like they think very low of themselves,
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of their own identity. They don't
usually think, I. Leave themselves
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well, I guess with Childhood Sexual
Abuse, that would not be technically an
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intimate relationship. Could we tell tell
us a little bit more about those patterns.
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Sure you know, with the juveniles
I work with right now. They
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are high school age, but you
know, most of them are juveniles under
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the law. And one of the
biggest and disturbing trends I'm seeing is grooming
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over social media, the by adult
defenders. And why I say adult defenders?
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Like these aren't, you know,
eighteen year olds grooming, you know,
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fourteen year olds. These are,
you know, fifty some odd year
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olds grooming fourteen year olds. And
they're not just, you know, talking,
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you know, smoothly to them.
They're requesting child pornography, they're telling
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these juvenals to do horrendous acts over, you know, some kind of social
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media platform and victimizing these children in
this way. And you know, this
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is horrendous no matter how old you
are to be victimized in this way,
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but for a child with a developing
self, identity and mind, this will
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have life term, lifetime consequences for
them and it just absolutely sickens me.
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And I mean, I know you
guys could do a lot of online,
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but do you do like you know, you know, we're sexual abuse and
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a non digital platform, like you
know, whether it's a father, uncle
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or those sort of calls. Right
in my current role. I don't.
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Usually I'm not one of the first, you know, off source to engage
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in those situations that are inside the
home, but often times I do have
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to make some kind of hotline call
and get children's division involved in there.
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I have seen, you know,
some good cases where juveniles are taken out
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of those dangerous situations, but unfortunately, you know, I think, like
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I said, like the long term, care and prevention is a huge weakness,
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you know, and keeping those perpetrators
away from victims. Okay, how
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has this impacted your faith? That's
a great question, you know, dealing
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with these very difficult calls. You
know, I think that will break down
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any police officer long term. You
will not make it in the law enforcement
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profession if you don't have faith.
You know. That's really help me understand,
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you know, all the evil that
I see, how to continue to,
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you know, see something, the
absolute worst thing one person could do
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to another person, and go to
sleep and wake up the next day,
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you know, and face it again. It's been my faith in Jesus being
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able to, you know, power
me through this. Understand you know.
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It's not by power, it's not
by my strength, but only by,
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you know, the Holy Spirit,
that I can continue to know what to
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do in these situations and how to, you know, work through them and
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face them again. Is there anything
else you would like to add? I
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don't think so. Yeah, you've
asked great questions. I really appreciate the
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ones you asked about, you know, how should howe police officer, you
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know, give themselves self care in
order to, you know, take care
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of their own mental health? I
think that's really overlooked. Okay, all
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right, guys, thanks for listening
and thanks Julie, for being on our
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show and absolutely thanks for tuning in. Guys. See You, guys,
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next Thursday at ten am and always
find us on your favorite social media platform
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or your favorite podcast platform and,
as always, you can go to Rachel
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00:16:27.559 --> 00:16:37.799
and Recoverycom and thanks for listening.
I'll here from you next week. Thanks.
