Noticing the Signs: How to Spot a Struggling Officer

Foreign.

Police Department.

Second shift briefing, 1345 hours.

Officers filter in.

Coffee cups in hand.

Somebody complaining about the cowboys.

Two guys arguing about whose turn it is to buy breakfast tomorrow.

The fluorescent lights buzz.

Someone's radio crackles.

With traffic from day shift wrapping up, Sergeant Derrick Webb stands at the front of the room, roster in hand, scanning his squad the way he does every shift.

Eight officers tonight.

He knows them all.

Knows their strengths, habits, their tales.

But tonight he's not checking attendance.

He's checking something else.

You watch a scene for things that don't fit.

Something out of place, something that changed.

Car door that shouldn't be open.

Curtain that moved.

You know, I started doing the same thing with my people.

Because the signs are there if you're paying attention.

Most of us just aren't.

One officer sits in the back corner tonight.

Used to sit up front, third row, same seat every briefing.

Used to be the guy cracking jokes before the sergeant started talking.

Keeping the energy up.

Tonight he's got his phone out, staring at the screen without really seeing it.

Hasn't looked up since he walked in.

Hasn't said a word to anyone Derek notices.

Files it away.

One data point.

Coffee cup on the desk.

Full.

Gone cold.

Didn't drink it.

Two data points.

Uniform shirt looks looser than it did a month ago.

Belt cinched one notch tighter.

Three data points.

Derek doesn't say anything.

Not yet.

But he's watching now.

Any one of those by itself could be anything.

Bad night's sleep, fight with the wife.

Doesn't mean anything.

But you start seeing a pattern.

Two things.

Three things.

Four things.

All pointing the same direction.

That's not a coincidence anymore.

That's someone telling you something they don't have words for yet.

This is the story of two Texas cops.

One who almost went under because nobody saw it.

One who made sure it didn't happen again.

We've been in your shoes.

Lying awake at 3am replaying that call over and over again.

Feeling hyper vigilant at the grocery store, watching peers struggle and not knowing what to say.

Police Speak was created by officers tired of seeing good people break down.

We understand the job because we've lived it and we've processed what you're experiencing.

You'll hear stories about what's worked after difficult calls.

A framework that outlines your resilience across six key areas.

We provide peer support, skills you can use starting tomorrow.

Build resilience before adversity overwhelms it.

Officers teaching officers.

I'm Michael Simpkins and this is Police Speak.

Today's episode is the first in a six part series on something called the All Protocol.

A peer support approach that's being picked up by the departments across the country.

All stands for three phases.

Appreciate, listen and lift.

We're starting with that first piece.

Appreciate.

Now I know what you're thinking.

Appreciate like gratitude.

Like I appreciate you, brother.

Well, not exactly.

Appreciate like awareness.

Situational awareness.

The same skill you use on every call.

Reading the environment.

Noticing what's out of place.

Catching the details that tell you something's about to go sideways.

The All Protocol says we should use that same skill on our people.

Not to diagnose anyone.

Not to play therapist.

Just to notice, pay attention, to read the signs that tell us when someone on our shift is struggling before they're ready to ask for help.

Most officers who ask for help have already been drowning for months.

Some don't make it long enough to ask.

The two officers you'll hear from today.

Both serve in a mid sized Texas department.

Names and some details have been changed, but their stories are real.

One of them almost became a statistic.

The other one made sure that didn't happen.

Here's a content note before we go further.

This episode discusses a child abuse case and its aftermath, including symptoms of acute stress.

We'll also talk about an officer involved shooting.

If you're currently struggling, I want you to know that resources are available and you're not alone.

You'll find those resources in our show notes.

Confidential, free and staffed by people who understand this job.

All right, let's get into it.

To understand why Sergeant Derek Webb pays such close attention to his officers, you have to understand what happened to him about eight years ago.

Derek was thoroughly 33 at the time.

Seven years on the job.

Solid patrol officer.

Nothing remarkable on his record.

Which in law enforcement usually means you're doing everything right.

He had come to the PD after about four years as an MP in the army stationed at Fort Hood.

Knew how to handle himself.

Thought he knew stress too.

I was the guy who had it together.

Ask anyone on my shift back then.

Web.

Solid.

Doesn't rattle.

That's who I thought I was.

March 15th.

Armed Robbery Call at a convenience store off the highway.

Derek was in the area.

Responded as backup.

When he arrived, the primary officer already had a suspect at gunpoint near the entrance.

Low light.

Sun had just gone down.

Parking lot lights casting shadows everywhere.

A second individual broke from the side of the building and turned toward Derek, Something in his hand already coming up.

It was dark.

He turned fast.

I saw something in his hand.

The way he Was holding it.

Looked like a weapon.

Looked like he was bringing it up.

My training kicked in.

I fired twice.

The suspect went down.

Derek approached, weapons still raised.

The gun was a.22 revolver, later confirmed stolen.

The shooting was justified.

The suspect was armed, raising the weapon.

Internal affairs, the DA's office, an independent review board all came back the same way.

But he was 16 years old.

Came out later.

He wasn't even one of the guys who did the robbery.

He was the lookout.

Sitting outside on his bike, watching for cops.

When we rolled up, his crew scattered.

He didn't.

Nobody knows why he didn't run.

Maybe he froze.

Maybe he was protecting his friends.

But he turned around and he had that gun in his hand.

And I had less than a second to decide.

The boy survived but barely.

Two shots.

One to the shoulder, one to the abdomen.

Three surgeries, six weeks in the hospital.

He walked out on a cane.

And after 18 months of rehab, he got most of his use of his left arm back.

Most of it.

The shooting was ruled justified.

Everything Derek did was within policy.

They kept telling me that you followed your training.

You made a split second decision with the information you had.

Any officer would have done the same thing.

And I know that's true.

I know it in my head.

But I shot a 16 year old kid.

Justified or not, that's something you carry.

The family filed a civil lawsuit.

It was dismissed eight months later.

The legal record was clear.

Derek had a weapon pointed at him and the DA had already declined to prosecute.

But none of that was the hard part.

The hard part was going home every night and pretending I was fine.

Looking my wife in the eye and saying, I'm good, baby.

Just tired.

Watching my daughter, she was six then.

Watching her play in the backyard and thinking about that kid somewhere.

Sixteen years old, doing physical therapy, trying to learn to use his arm again and not being able to say any of it out loud.

His wife Denise knew something was wrong.

Of course she did.

They'd been married for 10 years at that point.

But every time she tried to talk to him about it, Derek shut her down.

She'd say, baby, talk to me.

Tell me what's going on.

And I'd say, nothing's going on.

I'm fine.

Just stressed about work.

Same answer every time.

I was so convinced I was hiding, it turns out I was the only one who didn't know I was drowning.

The worst part happened around 3 in the morning.

Most nights, Derek would get out of bed quietly so he wouldn't wake Denise and go sit in his truck.

In the driveway.

Just sitting there in the dark, engine off, staring at nothing.

I couldn't make myself go back inside.

Couldn't make myself stay in that bed next to my wife, pretending everything was normal.

So I'd sit in my truck and sometimes I'd think about what it would be like to just start driving.

Not come back.

Leave all of it behind.

He wrote a resignation letter.

Kept it in his locker at work.

Never submitted it, but it was there.

Ready.

I figured if I couldn't shake this, whatever this was, I'd just quit.

Walk away from the job, start over somewhere else.

Maybe that would fix it.

Maybe if I wasn't a cop anymore, I could stop being the guy who shot that kid.

This went on for four months.

Four months of Derek falling apart while everyone around him thought he was fine.

What haunts him now?

Nobody noticed.

Not his sergeant, not his shift partners, not the department psychologist who cleared him after the shooting.

Nobody looked close.

Nobody looked close enough to see that Derek Webb, Solid, reliable, unshakable.

Derek Webb, was hanging on by a thread.

And I don't blame it.

I was good at hiding it.

I knew what to say in the psyche veil I knew how to put on the face.

But part of me was hoping, praying, really, that someone would see through it.

That someone would call me out.

Webb, you're not okay.

Let me help you.

I needed someone to give me permission.

And nobody did.

Until Roy Delgado showed up.

Roy Delgado was a legend in the department.

32 years on the job, most of them in patrol.

He'd been Derek's field training officer when Derek was a rookie.

One of those old school cops who taught you the job by doing it alongside you, not by quoting policy manuals.

By the time of Derek's shooting, Roy was semi retired, working the desk job in training division, counting down to his pension.

He and Derek would nod at each other in the hallway sometimes, maybe grab a coffee once or twice a year.

Friendly, but not close.

So when Roy showed up at Derek's house one Saturday morning unannounced, Derek didn't know what to think.

I'm standing in my driveway in sweatpants, haven't shaved in three days.

Probably look like hell.

And here comes Roy's truck pulling up to the curb.

He gets out, doesn't say good morning, doesn't ask how I'm doing.

Just looks at me and says, I'm going fishing.

You're coming.

Derek tried to make excuses.

Said he had stuff to do around the house.

Said Denise needed him for something.

Roy wasn't having it.

He Just stood there with his arms crossed, giving me that look.

You know the one, The FTO look that says, I've got all day and you're not winning this.

Finally, I said, fine.

Let me get my shoes.

They drove 45 minutes to a spot Roy knew on the Guadalupe river, set up chairs on the bank, cast their lines, and sat there.

For the first hour, they barely spoke.

Roy made small talk about the fish, the weather, some department gossip.

Derek gave one word, answers, waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for Roy to ask what was wrong, so Derek could say nothing, and they could both pretend this was just a fishing trip.

But Roy never asked.

That's what got me.

He never once said, how are you doing?

Or you want to talk about it?

He just sat there like he had nowhere else to be.

Like we could sit on that riverbank forever and that would be fine with him.

Around hour two, something broke loose.

I don't even remember what started it.

I think I made some comment about the water.

How it just keeps moving, doesn't care what's happening on the bank.

And then I was talking, really talking about the shooting, about the kid, about the nights in my truck and the resignation letter.

And all of it.

I couldn't stop.

Four months of holding it in, and suddenly it was all coming out.

Roy listened.

Didn't interrupt, didn't offer advice, didn't try to fix anything.

When Derek finally ran out of words, Roy was quiet for a long moment.

Then he said something Derek will never forget.

He said, I had one, too.

20 years ago.

Kid ran out between two parked cars chasing a ball.

I was doing maybe 35 in a residential.

Hit him before I even saw him.

He died at the scene.

And then he said, it never goes away completely.

But it gets lighter if you let people help you carry it.

One cop telling another cop, I've been where you are.

You're not alone.

Roy didn't fix me.

That's important to understand.

One conversation on a riverbank doesn't fix 20 years of trauma.

But he cracked something open, made it okay to not be okay.

And he showed me that you can go through something like this and come out the other side.

That was enough.

That was the thing I needed to hear.

After that day, Derek finally called the Employee Assistance Program.

Started seeing a counselor.

Grudgingly at first, then more willingly as the sessions helped.

Told Denise the truth about how bad things had gotten.

Let her in.

It took two years.

Two years of showing up, falling back, trying again.

But he got there.

Roy Delgado died three years later, heart attack.

Quick, the way old cops sometimes go.

Derek was a paw bearer at the funeral.

I think about Roy every single day.

Every time I see one of my offices struggling, I think about him showing up in my driveway with a fishing pole.

He didn't ask permission.

He didn't wait for me to reach out.

He just noticed I was drowning and threw me a rope.

That's what I try to do now.

That's why I watch what Roy Delgado did for Derek that day.

That's the appreciate phase in action.

Not a formal intervention, not a mental health screening.

Just paying attention, noticing the signs, and showing up before someone's ready to ask for help.

Derek learned something those four months.

People who are drowning don't wait for help.

They just sink.

You don't wait for someone to ask for a lifeline.

By the time they're asking, they've already gone under.

Twice.

So what does Derek watch for now?

What are the signs that tell him one of his officers might be struggling?

It's not complicated.

You're looking for change.

Something different from their baseline.

An officer who's usually early starts showing up late.

An officer who eats with the shift starts eating alone.

Someone who's chatty, goes quiet.

Someone who's quiet gets snappy.

Physical stuff, too.

Weight changes, looking tired.

Uniform's not as sharp as it used to be.

Any one thing by itself, maybe it's nothing.

But you stack em up over a couple weeks, and that's a pattern.

That's someone who needs you to notice before they're ready to ask.

Earlier this year, Derek noticed a pattern.

An officer on his shift.

Young guy, solid performer, well liked.

Started showing signs.

Nothing dramatic at first, but Derek was watching.

And this time, he didn't wait to understand.

Daniel Ochoa.

You have to understand where he comes from.

Third generation Mexican American, born and raised in Central Texas.

His grandfather, his abuelo, was a deputy sheriff in a small town south of San Antonio for 30 years.

Daniel grew up on stories of the badge.

Riding along as a kid, watching his grandfather walk the line between being a cop and being part of the community.

My abuelo was the reason I became a cop.

Not because he pushed me into it.

He never did that.

But watching him, seeing how people respected him, how he helped people, I wanted that.

I wanted to serve my community the way he did.

Daniel joined the PD at 25, right out of college.

Criminal justice degree from Texas State.

Good scores at the academy.

Enthusiastic, professional.

Exactly the kind of young officer departments love to hire.

Six years in, he'd built a solid reputation.

Reliable.

The guy who showed up early and stayed late.

First to volunteer for overtime, last to complain.

He had just completed his field training officer certification.

Assigned, the department saw leadership potential in him.

Daniel was the kind of officer you want on your shift.

Solid backup, Good instincts.

Got along with everyone.

I've been quietly grooming him for sergeant.

Figure in a few more years, he'd be ready.

He had that thing, you know, that thing where people trust you.

Off duty, Daniel had built the life he had always wanted.

Married his high school sweetheart, Sophia, when he was 26.

They bought a small house in a quiet neighborhood.

Three years ago, they had a son, Lucas.

Everything I do is for that kid.

Lucas is.

He's why I do this.

I want him to grow up proud of me, you know?

Have what I had.

Maybe better.

Three years old, dark hair, round face.

Daniel's whole world.

The call came in on a Tuesday night, April 14, 21, 47 hours.

Welfare check.

Neighbor reported hearing the child screaming in the apartment next door.

Then sudden silence.

No answer at the door.

Concerned for the child's safety, Daniel was closest.

He took the call.

Welfare checks.

You never know what you're walking into.

Could be nothing.

Kid having a tantrum.

Parents got it under control.

Could be something else.

You go in ready for anything.

The apartment door was unlocked.

Daniel announced himself.

Got no response.

He entered.

The living room was dim, curtains drawn.

A woman was unconscious on the couch, drug paraphernalia on the coffee table, needle still in her arm.

Daniel cleared the room, called for backup and ems, and moved toward the hallway.

The child was in the back bedroom.

I've seen a lot in six years.

Fatal accidents, overdoses, homicides.

You build up a. I don't know, a wall.

A way of keeping it at a distance so you can do the job.

But when I walked into that bedroom.

Four years old, a little boy lying on a bare mattress on the floor.

He'd been beaten badly.

Bruises covered his torso and face, Some fresh, some older.

When Daniel got closer, he saw the burns on the child's hands.

Cigarette burns.

Deliberate, in a pattern.

The boy was breathing but unresponsive.

Eyes closed.

Didn't react when Daniel spoke to him.

I went into autopilot.

That's what the training does.

Takes over when your brain can't process what you're seeing.

I called for ems, started first aid, checked his vitals.

I held his hand and I talked to him.

Told him help was coming.

Told him he was going to be okay.

I don't know if he heard me.

He never opened his eyes.

Backup arrived.

EMS arrived.

They Transported the boy to the hospital.

Daniel stayed on scene to secure it for the investigators.

The mother was arrested.

Injury to a child possession, a list of charges that would grow over the following days.

The boyfriend who'd inflicted most of the abuse was picked up two days later on outstanding warrants.

The boy survived.

He's in state custody now.

Prognosis uncertain, but alive.

Case closed.

Good outcome on paper.

Everyone told me, good job, sergeant Wedding, the detectives, the lieutenant, quick response, good documentation, exactly by the book.

And I smiled and said thanks and went home.

Daniel walked through his front door at 3 in the morning.

Sophia was asleep.

He took a shower, hot as he could stand it, standing under the water until it went cold.

Then he went to his son's room.

Lucas was asleep in his toddler bed, clutching the stuffed dinosaur.

Dark hair, round face, three years old.

Daniel stood in the doorway for over an hour, just watching his son breathe.

He looked so much like that kid.

Same hair, same cheeks, same size.

I stood there and I kept seeing.

I kept seeing the bruises, the burns on my son, on Lucas.

I couldn't make it stop.

I couldn't separate them in my head.

He didn't sleep that night.

Or the next.

The first week after the call, Daniel seemed fine.

A little quiet, maybe, but he showed up to work, did his job, went home.

He even came to a shift party that weekend.

Someone's birthday, backyard barbecue.

Stood around with a beer in his hand, made small talk, left early, but not suspiciously so.

Derek checked in briefly, the way a good supervisor does after a rough call.

I pulled him aside at briefing.

First shift, after the call, said, that was a tough one.

You good?

And he said, yeah, sarge.

Just glad the kid made it.

And that was that.

First week, I wasn't worried.

Bad calls shake everyone.

You give people space to process.

You don't hover.

Week two is when Derek started noticing little things.

At first, Daniel was late to briefing.

Not by much, five minutes, but he's never late.

Then it happened again the next day.

I made a mental note.

The shift had a regular gym routine.

Three or four of them would work out together on their days off.

Daniel hadn't missed a session in two years.

Week two, he stopped showing up.

Garcia mentioned it to me, said, hey, Ochoa's bailed on the gym twice now.

What's up with them?

I said I didn't know, but I fathered away.

Then there was lunch.

Daniel was the social glue of the shift.

The guy who organized lunch runs, who knew everyone's order, who kept the conversation going in the break room.

Week two, Derek noticed him eating alone in his patrol car.

Not every day, but more than once.

That's three things now.

Late to briefing, skipping the gym, eating alone.

Each one by itself I can explain away.

But together, that's a pattern starting to form.

Week three is when the pattern became undeniable.

Late to briefing.

Not once, not twice, but three times.

Called in sick one day, which was rare for Daniel, snapped that dispatch over, a minor issue.

Had to apologize.

Afterward, his reports were taking twice as long.

Derek would see him at the end of shifts, staring at his laptop screen, barely typing.

The weight loss was visible.

By week three, his uniform shirt was hanging different, belt cinched tighter, dark circles under his eyes, like he hadn't slept in days.

And he was avoiding me.

Not obviously.

He wasn't running away or anything, but every time I'd catch his eye across the squad room, he'd look somewhere else.

There was a moment in the break room that stuck with Derek.

Someone made a joke about a call.

Dark humor.

The kind cops use to cope.

Daniel laughed along, then added his own comment.

Hey, at least we get paid for this, right?

And it just landed wrong.

The way he said it, there was something underneath.

Not funny, dark, like we all do, just dark.

The other guys laughed, moved on.

I didn't.

Derek was watching a pattern he recognized because he'd lived it.

Everything I was seeing in Daniel, the isolation, the sleep problems, the short fuse, the weight loss.

I've seen it before, in the mirror, eight years ago, and I knew exactly where it was heading.

If somebody didn't do something.

While Derek was watching from the outside, Daniel was fighting a battle nobody could see.

The images started the night of the call and never stopped.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the boy in that apartment.

The bruises, the burns, the closed eyes that never opened.

I'd be doing something normal.

Watching tv, eating dinner, whatever.

And suddenly I'm back in that room.

I can smell it.

I can feel the carpet under my boots.

And I can't make it stop.

Sleep became impossible.

He'd lie in bed for hours, exhausted, but unable to drift off.

When he did sleep, he'd wake up three in the morning, heart pounding, sheets soaked with sweat.

The same time every night, like his body had set an alarm.

Sophia started noticing.

She'd wake up when I did.

Try to get me to talk about it.

I tell her I was fine.

Just a nightmare.

Go back to sleep, baby.

I didn't want her to worry.

I didn't want to be a burden.

The worst part was Lucas.

Daniel couldn't look at his son without seeing the other boy.

Every time Lucas reached for him, Daniel saw burned hands.

Every time Lucas smiled, Daniel saw bruises.

I started avoiding him.

My own son.

I'd come home and make excuses not to play with him.

Say I had to do something in the garage or I needed to take a shower or I was tired.

Sophia would do bedtime while I sat in the living room staring at nothing.

I couldn't hold my kid without seeing that.

Sophia didn't know the details.

Daniel had never told her about the call, just that it was a rough one.

But she knew something was wrong.

Her husband had become a stranger.

Distant, present in the house, but gone everywhere else.

She lay awake at night, didn't know what to say.

I could feel her watching me, feel her wanting to ask.

But I couldn't open that door.

Because if I opened it, I'd have to talk about what was inside.

And I wasn't ready for that.

I wasn't sure I'd ever be ready.

Daniel kept telling himself the same things, the same lies we tell ourselves when we're drowning.

It's only been three weeks.

I'll get over it.

Other guys handle worse than this every day.

What's wrong with me?

I can't be the one who falls apart over a call.

I just got my FTO cert.

I'm supposed to be training new officers.

I can't be the guy who needs help.

My eboiler worked 30 years and never talked about the hard stuff.

If he could handle it, I can handle it.

In Daniel's family, men don't talk about struggle.

His grandfather never did.

You carry it, you don't share it.

Daniel didn't know it, but that was costing him everything.

His sleep was gone.

He couldn't connect with the son.

His marriage was straining, and he couldn't see a way out.

I thought if I just kept pushing through, eventually it would fade.

Eventually, I'd be normal again.

That's what's supposed to happen, right?

Time heals all wounds.

So I kept showing up, kept putting on the uniform, Kept pretending.

But Derek Webb had stopped pretending.

He didn't see it.

Three weeks after the call, Derek made a decision.

He'd been watching Daniel, cataloging the signs, waiting to see if things would improve on their own.

They weren't improving.

They were getting worse.

There's a moment where you have to stop watching and start acting.

I kept thinking about what would have happened if Roy had waited another month to show up at my house.

Would I have submitted that resignation letter?

Would I have Done something worse, I'll never know.

But I wasn't going to take that chance.

With Daniel.

The challenge was how to approach it.

Derek knew if he made it official, called Daniel into his office, use words like wellness check or mental health, Daniel would shut down completely, the walls would go up, and Derek would lose any chance of getting through.

I needed to do what Roy did.

Create an opening without forcing him through it.

So I kept it simple.

End of shift, a Thursday night.

Derek caught Daniel in the parking lot, heading to his truck.

Hey, Ochoa, you eat yet?

I was just gonna grab something on the way home.

Why?

There's a diner on Guadalupe that does breakfast all night.

Let me buy you some earrings.

Daniel hesitated.

Derek could see him trying to find an excuse.

I didn't give him a chance to say no.

Just said, I'll meet you there.

10 minutes.

And I walked to my truck.

They sat in a booth at the back of the diner, the late night crowd thin enough that they had privacy.

Derek ordered coffee and scrambled eggs.

Daniel ordered coffee and didn't touch it for the first few minutes.

Derek kept it light.

Department gossip.

The new policy on body cameras.

A story about something stupid a rookie did on day shift.

Daniel gave one word, answers, clearly waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I figured he was gonna write me up for being late or ask if I needed to go on light duty.

Something official.

I had my defenses ready, all the ways I'd say I was fine.

But Derek didn't ask if Daniel was fine.

Instead, he did something Daniel wasn't expecting.

He talked about himself.

I told him about my shooting eight years ago, the kid, all of it.

I told him about the four months of hiding, the nights in my truck, the resignation letter in my locker.

I told him I almost didn't make it.

Daniel sat there, coffee getting cold, and listened to his sergeant describe falling apart.

I told him about Roy, how he showed up without asking, without making it weird.

How that one conversation on the riverbank didn't fix anything, but it opened something up.

And then I told him why I was telling him this.

Derek looked Daniel in the eye.

I said, I'm not telling you this because I've got it all figured out.

I'm telling you because I see something in you that I saw in myself eight years ago.

And I almost didn't make it.

Daniel didn't respond right away.

Jaw tight, eyes on the table.

The guy wanted to bolt.

I didn't push.

Just sat there.

Let the silence do the work.

Same thing word did for me.

When Daniel finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.

There was this kid on a call three weeks ago.

He was four years old.

But he started talking.

He couldn't stop once he started.

The child's injuries, the burns on his hands, holding the boy's hand while they waited for ems.

Going home and standing in Lucas's doorway.

The images that wouldn't stop.

The nights without sleep, avoiding his own son because he couldn't separate the two boys in his mind.

I can't look at my kid without seeing that other kid.

I can't hold him without seeing bruises that aren't there.

What kind of father does that make me?

What's wrong with me?

Derek let him talk until he ran out of words.

Then he said, what you're feeling doesn't mean you're broken.

Means you're human.

The day something like this stops hitting you, that's the day you turn in the badge.

But you don't have to carry it alone.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

The diner clattered around them, dishes in the kitchen, the door chiming as someone came in.

The low murmur of the late night crowd.

Normal sounds they didn't register.

My Buello never talked about the hard stuff.

30 years as a deputy and I never once heard him complain.

I thought that meant it didn't affect him.

I thought that's what strength look like.

Maybe it affected him more than you know.

Maybe he just suffered in silence because nobody gave him permission to do anything else.

We don't have to keep making that same mistake.

They talked for another hour.

Derek didn't try to solve anything, just listened, asked questions, helped Daniel, put words to what was happening.

Before they left, Derek told Daniel about eap, the Employee Assistance Program.

Free Confidential Counseling.

Daniel had known it existed vaguely, but had never considered using it.

I thought that was for people with real problems like addiction or domestic stuff.

I didn't think what I was going through counted.

It counts what you're going through.

The stuff you can't stop seeing.

The not sleeping, pulling away from your kid.

That's exactly what those counselors are trained for.

You don't have to be in crisis to ask for help.

In fact, it works better if you don't wait that long.

Derek didn't make Daniel promise anything, didn't follow up with a formal report or a mandatory referral.

Just g him information and left the choice in his hands.

The last thing I said to him that night was, you're a good cop, Daniel.

This doesn't change that.

What changes it is if you don't Deal with it.

And then I let him go.

Daniel didn't call EAP that night or the next day.

He went home and lay in bed next to Sophia, staring at the ceiling, thinking about everything Derek had said.

Two days later, he made the call.

I felt stupid, sitting in a counselor's office, trying to explain why I couldn't look at my own son.

But she got it right away.

She knew exactly what I was describing.

Turns out I wasn't the first cop who'd walk through that door with the same story.

The counseling helped.

Not overnight.

Nothing works overnight.

But over the following weeks and months, Daniel started coming back.

Told Sophia what was happening.

Really told her.

Not the edited version.

She cried, he cried.

And something shifted between them.

The distance that had been growing for weeks started to close.

She said, why didn't you tell me sooner?

And I didn't have a good answer.

I thought I was protecting her.

Turns out I was just protecting myself from having to admit I wasn't.

Okay.

The images faded slowly.

Still showed up sometimes, especially when he was tired or when something on a call reminded him.

But they didn't have that same power.

He learned to recognize them as memories, not reality.

Reality learned to let those memories pass.

Two months in, he had a setback.

Another call involving a kid.

Not abuse, just a sick toddler.

And everything came flooding back.

He almost quit counseling, but he didn't.

My counselor taught me this thing.

Grounding, she called it.

When the image is hit, I look around, notice what I can see, what I can touch.

Sounds dumb.

Works, though.

The hardest part was Lucas.

But slowly, over weeks, Daniel rebuilt that connection, too.

The first time I was able to hold him without seeing that other boy.

Man, I was sitting on the floor with him.

We were building blocks or something.

And I realized I was just there with my kid.

First time since the call, I felt like his dad.

Today, nine months after the welfare check, Daniel Ochoa is back.

Not all the way.

He still has rough days, still seizes counsel every couple of weeks, still sometimes wakes at 3 in the morning.

But he's back in the squad room, back eating lunch with the guys.

Back being the officer his department hired six years ago.

I'm not 100%.

I don't know if I'll ever be a hundred percent.

But I'm getting there.

And I'm only getting there because someone paid attention when I was too stubborn to ask for help.

I asked Daniel what he'd say to the other officers who might be going through something similar.

He thought about it for a while before answering.

I Don't know.

I tell them, this doesn't make you weak.

Took me a long time to believe that.

My sergeant telling me about his stuff, that's what got through.

So maybe some other young eye hears this and thinks, okay, maybe I can say something.

I don't know.

That's all I got.

And Derek?

I don't take credit for Daniel's recovery.

He did the work, he made the calls, he showed up to counseling.

Even when it was hard, all I did was notice and not look away.

So what does appreciate actually look like in practice?

It's not complicated.

It's the same situational awareness you already use on every call.

Just pointed at your own people instead of your scene.

Derek Webb breaks it down in terms any officer can understand.

Physical signs, first, weight changes, up or down.

Looking tired.

Bags under their eyes.

Uniform not as sharp as usual.

Stop working out when they used to.

Moving slower, less energy.

Then behavioral stuff.

Showing up late when they're usually early.

Skipping meals or eating different.

Calling in sick more than normal.

Snapping at people over small things.

Reports taking longer, forgetting stuff they wouldn't normally forget.

And social signs, that's the big one.

Not talking about family anymore.

Withdrawing from shift friendships.

Eating alone, not joking around.

Canceling plans.

Avoiding certain people.

Getting defensive when anyone gets close to a real conversation.

Derek's rule of thumb is simple.

Any one thing by itself, probably nothing.

But you see two, three, four of these in the same officer over a couple of weeks.

That's not coincidence.

That's a pattern.

And that's someone who needs you to notice before they're ready to ask.

The key word there is before.

Before they ask, before they're in crisis.

Before they've done something that can't be undone.

Think of it like a line.

Above the line, you can handle the job.

Below it, you start braking.

Most cops hover around that line.

Bad calls push you down.

Time and backup push you back up.

But if you stay below too long, if nobody notices, nobody reaches out.

You don't bounce back.

You keep sinking.

Derek Webb almost sank.

Daniel almost sank.

The only difference between their story and a tragedy was someone paying attention.

Appreciate is just the first step.

Once you've noticed that someone's struggling, you need to know how to engage without making them shut down.

That's the listen phase.

And that's our next episode.

So here's the thing.

You're not just shift partners.

You're the last line for each other.

Sometimes not on the street, in the quiet fights nobody else can see.

The ones that happen at three in the morning when someone's sitting in their truck thinking about resignation letters are worse.

Roy Delgado paid attention and Derek Webb is still on the job because of it.

Derek Webb paid attention and Daniel Ochoa is still on the job because of it.

The question is, who's paying attention to the officers on your shift?

Who's reading the signs?

And if you see the pattern, if you not someone sinking, what are you going to do about it?

This job takes everything you got.

It's on us to notice when someone's given too much.

If you're struggling right now, you don't have to wait for someone to notice.

Resources are in our Show Notes Safecall Now Cop Line, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Confidential, free and staffed by people who understand the job.

And if you're the one doing the noticing, don't wait.

Show up next time on Police Speak.

The Listen phase How to start a conversation someone doesn't want to have.

I'm Michael Simpkins and this is Police Speak.

If this conversation landed, take the next step.

Go to the Show Notes and complete the 5 minute PR6 assessment.

You'll see your current resilience baseline across six domains.

Where you're strong, where you're vulnerable.

It's the same tool we use in RFA certification.

Want to be on the podcast?

We're looking for officers who've managed accumulated exposure and figured out what actually works, not clean recovery stories.

We need the setbacks, the plateaus, the tools that failed and the ones that stuck.

Hit the link in the Show Notes, fill out the form.

We keep it confidential and work with you on how your story gets told.

You can also join the Police Beat Community officers having these conversations every day, not just when the podcast drops links in the Show Notes.

Thanks for listening.

See you next week.

Sam.