Transformational Trauma and Healing: Mental Health and Law Enforcement

Join me as I speak with Pete Forcelli, retired ATF Assistant Deputy Director and former NYPD Homicide Detective as we discuss the importance of mental health access in law enforcement.

You can find more information on Pete, here.

Pete's book, The Deadly Path

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Transcript

0:28 - Carrie Rickert Welcome, Pete. Thank you so much for being here today.

0:32 - Peter Forcelli Thanks for having me. Good to be here.

0:35 - Carrie Rickert Absolutely. So I have been so excited about doing this recording. And there are lots of different reasons. Obviously, mental health and trauma are important subjects for me. But I also used to work in law enforcement as a civilian. I was a forensic services technician with Baltimore County Police Department. So I witnessed a lot of violence and trauma, not active violence, but after the fact. And I know for a fact that we never talked about it and there was no indication that we should or, you know, we were never given resources, things like that. Why don't we start by talking about the physical and mental impact that violence and trauma can have on law enforcement officers. And please use some of your experiences as insight.

1:41 - Peter Forcelli Sure. Well, like you, I mean, I spent some time in law enforcement, 35 years. And, you know, as a patrol cop and as a detective, I saw things that you just can't unsee. And then later on as an agent, I survived the terror attacks on 9-11. So I experienced I would you know, I guess it's violence directed at me, but it's kind of awkward to describe it that way, because buildings falling on you and trying to seek cover and whatnot isn't necessarily what you would normally think of when you speak about violence. Right. No, I mean, look, it leaves a scar. But like what you said earlier, I was I was brought into the profession during a time where you did not talk about it. You know, suck it up, buttercup, you know, is kind of the mentality, or hey, I'm the police, I'm the person that you come to for help, so I don't ask for help, you know, how dare you? But yeah, no, I had some issues that I mostly just hid. And, you know, you spend some time, and I'm sure you can, you know, understand this, you know, you'd come home and you'd have a rough day, see some things that were bothering you, maybe have some difficulty sleeping, or sit there, turn on the television, sit in a chair, and, really be staring at the television, but not really even watching TV and not paying attention to what people around you're saying. So you kind of shut yourself off into this own little world where you're in your own head, which is obviously not very healthy. And it was truthfully, like, you know, I didn't have the courage to get out from under that burden for decades. It wasn't until 2018, and I retired in 2021 with of 35 service, but it wasn't until 2018 where I really started to understand what my body had gone through when I said, hey, enough. I came into this profession whole And I wanted to leave whole. But I mean, some of the things, man, I had a couple instances where I thought I was having a heart attack, and it turned out it was, you know, stress. So I mean, there was just a lot of things over many, many years, and not understanding how stress worked. And again, being in denial, because that's how we were raised. I never addressed it. I just let it eat at me for far too long.

3:43 - Carrie Rickert Right, right. Well, and I think that is, you know, as you said, it's sort of the expectation that you signed up for this job. You knew what you were doing going in. So why would you be surprised that you see violence or experience trauma? And reality is, it's not that you are surprised by that, like you expect it. And still your body, your mind, your spirit have to process that trauma and be able to live with it. And yet there is no real repository for doing that when you are in law enforcement, I think in military, although I think the military actually has done a better job than law enforcement.

4:37 - Peter Forcelli They have, look, I've said that actually to many people, you know, I give them a lot of credit because it was a similar profession, all that bravado, you know, you were supposed to be tough, you're supposed to be strong. And it was soldiers that came back from theaters of war, you know, who didn't come back old, they didn't come back the same, that the military decided that they were going to start doing something proactively about it. And part of it was because of veteran suicide, I'm sure of that. But law enforcement, I mean, more law enforcement officers take their lives and are killed in the line of duty nearly every year. But we we weren't as as proactive in law enforcement or other first responders in doing what the military did. So, look, I've always had the deepest respect for our armed forces. And here I know we're recording before Memorial Day. So, you know, important weekend. But I've got to give them credit in addition to what I already love them for. That they had the courage to address this early on, that they've come a long way in developing different methodologies, different strategies in dealing with it, because there is no one way. There is no magic bullet, as you know. And I mean, I know there's even still things that they're looking at. And I'm not a doctor. I'm not in that lane. I worry about taking care of myself at this point, and obviously taking care of others as much as I can. But I know they're even looking at some drugs that were considered psychotropic drugs in the past that might have some benefit to people who were suffering from PTSD or other ailments. So I do think that there's hope that things will get better. But again, the military really took us into a whole different world. And God bless them for that, because too many people were suffering. We lost far too many people to not do anything about it.

6:14 - Carrie Rickert Right, right. And yet law enforcement still seems to be kind of under the under the radar there, even though they shouldn't be. So why do you believe that so many law enforcement officers, or, you know, even civilians in law enforcement, don't seek mental health care?

6:37 - Peter Forcelli Culture is an amazing thing in a good way and in a bad way. And I'd say that with law enforcement, there's been a culture that's been there for generations. Like I said before, hey, I'm not the person that asks for help. I'm the person that the public comes to for help. And look, even if you're support staff, you're not a sworn officer, you're still in that culture. So I think that that has been a bad thing and I look I understand it and look some of the things I did when I was younger to cope with stress. When I look back now I'm almost appalled that and that's that you build that gallows humor where you see things that are horrific. And I was never disrespectful to anybody, but you do kind of almost try to laugh off some things that you see that aren't really worth laughing at. They're actually quite appalling, but that's a survival mechanism. But I do think that the reason law enforcement is behind the curve is that it's a difficult culture to penetrate. I think they've come a long way from where they were 20 years ago, but they're still light years behind where they need to be to keep folks, you know, healthy when they're on the job, but also in retirement. I mean, that's another thing that folks forget is law enforcement officers generally don't live very long after they retire if they do a full career and a full career can be 20 years. I mean, the life expectancy of a law enforcement officer and a firefighter is actually quite low when you look at the rest of the general population.

8:00 - Carrie Rickert I did not know that. That's interesting. And is that due to stress-related illnesses, death by suicide, things like all of those things?

8:16 - Peter Forcelli Well, notwithstanding death by suicide, which I said, like I told you before, more cops kill themselves than are killed in the line of duty, but it's in retirement. And again, I'm not a doctor, I'm not an expert in this, but I've studied it a little bit because in my last few years with my Last employer ATF, I was in charge of training and we wanted to help people break out of this shell. And what I was told is a lot of it's cops and federal agents don't necessarily always practice the healthiest things in their everyday lives.

8:46 - Peter Forcelli So I mean, that whole donuts thing.

8:48 - Peter Forcelli Yeah, or you're on surveillance in a car, you're not necessarily moving around, you're in a cubicle typing reports, again, you're not moving around. But it's worse than that. What I was told from experts is that when you're out there constantly responding to these scenes where there's tension, your body is dumping a lot of chemicals, cortisone, adrenaline, and it's like a drug. So what happens is you're riding this wave of, you know, being on these naturally produced drugs and then off and then on and then off through your whole crease, which takes a toll on your body. And then when you compound that with, you know, not sleeping regularly, because sometimes people work shifts or other times you're waking up at different hours to do warrants or certain things. So when you have those things, that are not, you don't have a routine and you have these constant chemical dumps, they take a long-term toll on your body. And that's why police officers generally, and firemen, and I'd imagine paramedics and others, I haven't spoken about those professions directly because it was kind of outside of my lane, but I would imagine anybody who's operating in that environment probably would suffer from the same, you know, issues as a police officer or anybody else who's constantly thrust into stressful situations and working all kinds of crazy shifts.

10:01 - Carrie Rickert Right. It's interesting because you mentioned gallows humor and I had to like chuckle a little bit because I'm thinking about, I'm thinking back to my time at Baltimore County and we would make the most ridiculous jokes. I mean, certainly not on the scene, not in front of people's, you know, families or anything like that, but we would get back to headquarters and just, like, say the most outrageous things to, like, laugh at what we had seen. And even then, it did not occur to me that that was because of the culture, as you said, that didn't occur to me, that that was not actually helpful to my survival post that, right? It was helpful to survival in the moment, but not helpful to survival long-term. Sure.

11:06 - Peter Forcelli Well, one thing I'll say, it's kind of weird. Like, you know, when I responded to homicide scenes a lot when I was a homicide detective, again, you build up this wall. So I hate to say it because it sounds callous. Like I care about people deeply. I always cared about community. You know, I respect everybody I meet until they give me a reason not to. And very few people have done that. But I remember, you know, again, you have this wall up. So you kind of joking around, you take things lightly. But I learned the hard way, like much later in my career, When I was in charge of ATF's Miami office, when I left the NYPD and went to the federal service, I had to respond to the mass shootings at Fort Lauderdale Airport and at Parkland. And I had been to mass killings before that, like the Happy Land Social Club fire was 87 people. But that was when I was constantly doing those sorts of things. I was still a patrol cop then, but I mean, you saw a lot of deaths, so you had to armor up. By the time those two things happened, I was an executive, so I wasn't going to those scenes all the time. So those two scenes really profoundly affected me because I was, I hate to say this, because again, it sounds callous, I wasn't doing the repetitions, if you will, of keeping the armor up. So with the armor down, those things impacted me a lot more. But it really opened my eyes to something else, too, is that the people who aren't in the law enforcement or first responder profession, when they see things like that, it might affect them more fast and more profoundly than it does someone who sees it all the time. But again, no matter whether you do or don't, it affects everybody. And I think that it's important that we recognize that because for years, people, if someone was suffering from post-traumatic stress, we almost poked fun of it in the old days, which is really appalling when you think of it, knowing what we know today.

12:48 - Carrie Rickert Right, right. And I think Vietnam really did a lot to turn that around, right? That is really when post-traumatic stress came to light, often too late to help the people who needed it. But Vietnam was a good lesson for our mental health care systems.

13:11 - Peter Forcelli Yes. Yes. And I remember years ago, even, you know, Vietnam era, maybe even before they still refer to it as shell shock. If you remember, when you talk about some older folks that lived in our neighborhoods, oh, so-and-so was shell-shocked. And I was a kid. I didn't know what that meant. Well, now I know what they're talking about. It's the same thing.

13:26 - Carrie Rickert Yeah, it's PTSD.

13:28 - Peter Forcelli Yeah, yeah. So it's a much kinder term, PTSD, than shell-shocked, obviously. But again, the fact that they've made such progress in the last 10 and such little progress in the decades before that, is a bit shocking. But it's promising what they're doing now, thank God.

13:46 - Carrie Rickert Yeah. So how can law enforcement agencies prioritize mental health and well-being of their officers? Are there systems in place that you know of now or do many of the agencies need to put those systems in place?

14:02 - Peter Forcelli Well, I think from my experience and in my last few roles, I actually interacted with a lot of different law enforcement agencies. They've come a long way. Like the organizations themselves, a lot of them have peer support programs now, which is great because you're talking to people who have walked in your shoes, who have seen what you've seen. And I know in like many peer support programs, they try to have that person who's going through trauma, talk to someone who went through similar trauma. Like I know an ATF, if an agent was diagnosed with cancer, which is traumatic, not necessarily line of duty, but still traumatic, they would have an agent who survived cancer go and talk to that person, or at least try to, because you can't force the person to talk to you. So we also had employee assistance programs. Many departments have it. You know, they're normally people who are contracted or outside. So there is a confidentiality, you know, other than if the person's threatening to kill themselves or someone else, then they have mandatory reporting. You have many police departments. NYPD was very good at this. And even federal agencies, I've learned, have done as chaplain programs. Because some folks might not want to talk to a doctor or a clinic, you know, a clinician, but they might talk to a member of their clergy. And then, you know, so I mean, they've come a long way. And look, there's other things to doctors and whatnot. So I think police departments have made those things available. But what I've seen is the culture still exists where, hey, the agency heads are saying, hey, it's here. But there's a fear to come forward and say, hey, I need help. Because in the old days, if you were deemed mentally compromised, they took your gun. You got assigned to a desk job. Like the things that I think people valued in the profession were taken away from them. I don't see, to be honest with you, though, I don't see departments doing that as much now. But I just don't think that the culture has allowed folks to realize that, hey, the departments are actually trying to help you. It's the culture at the line level that's being a bit resisted to it because in the old days, you just didn't do that. So I mean, there's work to be done. And I'll tell you, the other thing that I think is really important is for folks to be aware that not the same, what worked for me might not work for the next person. I found when I was going through my issues, which was survivor's guilt and PTSD, that meditation worked for me. But originally when I sought help, the first thing they wanted to offer me was medication. And the medication just knocked me on my backside. But meditation Which at first, when people suggested it, I thought they were crazy, because I always thought of meditation like a chanting monk or something like that. Right, right. But then when you learn more about it...

16:46 - Carrie Rickert A little woo-woo for law enforcement, right?

16:49 - Peter Forcelli Yeah. And I was absolutely like, you know, I did not believe it would work. It did wonders for me. And I mean, so much so that I was actually, because I had lung cancer as a result of 9-11. And it was part of going through that process where I realized, hey, man, I need to leave this job as healthy and as whole as I can. So when I started to talk about what was going on, a meditation practitioner, who was a doctor who left medicine to teach meditation, had a really good conversation with me. But anyway, my blood pressure, because I wasn't sure if I was going to live or die, was like at stroke levels. It was ridiculously high. And they wanted to put me on medication for that as well. Well, through meditation, I was actually able to bring it down to like right now, it's like 110 over 70. So it's like right where it needs to be. But again, that might not work for somebody else. So I mean, it's a matter of you got to be patient and explore the different options and then find the one that works for you and then stick with it.

17:44 - Carrie Rickert Right, right. And that can be such an overwhelming sense of like you're already in a state, right? You're in a state of Oh my God, I don't know what's going on with me. I need help, but I'm afraid to ask for help because the culture says that makes me weak and they'll take away what I'm supposed to be doing in the world. And then you add on top of that, all the different things that you could try to see. And it's like, All right, so I try meditation and that doesn't work. And I try medication and that doesn't work. I try acupuncture and that doesn't work. And it becomes, I would imagine, overwhelming and even more frustrating.

18:35 - Peter Forcelli Sure, sure. But you know, and look, again, there's no overnight fix, you know what I mean? But there's a couple things I'll say. And one is I think it has to get pushed down from leadership. Like, for example, when the Fort Lauderdale airport shooting happened, one of my agents, because five people were killed there, one of my agents was on one side of the security barrier, and his daughter was on the other. And this wasn't a soft guy. This guy was a former Green Beret, great agent, you know, he'd been around. It affected him. Now, he never told me that, but what happened was I was affected too, because like I told you, I'd let my guard down. By this time, I was an executive. Here I see five people killed near the baggage carousels. They were about to go on a trip. They were all waiting for a bus to take them to a cruise. So you're like, wow, these poor people were about to have the time of their life, and it was stolen from them. It really affected me badly. So when the peer support people came, ATF had a policy, you can't force people to talk to peer support. And I decided, well, I'm not going to force them to talk to them, but I'm going to at least make them come and listen to what peer support has to offer. And then once that happened, I was the first one to say, hey, look, this is how I feel. Because I wanted folks to know that if you're at the top, rather than say, all right, folks, talk to them. If you'll talk first, maybe you'll break the ice so that others will talk. And I was actually surprised that this Green Beret was one of the first to speak up, former Green Beret. And then the others were guys on our SWAT team who are the guys I least expected to want to talk, really spoke out the most. And then the same thing happened with Parkland. So I think one of the things that can help is if leadership leads by example when it comes to asking for help. That would be a huge step in the right direction rather than, you know, they're not doing so, where folks think, well, if I ask for help, the boss says it's available to me, but if I do it, he might judge me adversely. So, I mean, I just think leading by example in this lane is also critically important, you know?

20:26 - Carrie Rickert Absolutely. Well, I mean, and to be honest, I do a lot of, I'm a management consultant and do leadership development. That's important in all leadership roles, right? Is that you need to be vulnerable to your team to allow them the opportunity to ask for what they need so that you can all be successful. Because if one member of your team is losing their mind over something horrible, which they should be, right? 100%. You know, like, it is not okay to see that kind of stuff. It just isn't.

21:11 - Peter Forcelli And as you know though, in the law enforcement profession over there are still some managers around from the old days that feel this need to be gruff and tough. And so that's, again, that's another area that needs to be broken down. But here's another thing too. We also have this tendency, because we're all such tough people, to not ask somebody when you see them and they look like something's not right, hey man, how you doing? I mean, it doesn't, hey, what's wrong with you? It doesn't have to be something accusatory, but sometimes you say, man, you doing okay? How you doing? You all right? I mean, just to ask, because some folks, man, as you know, they go into their shell and too often people like, hmm, have you seen Pete lately? And then there's no communication. It's like they almost ostracize that person because they're acting differently rather than proactively go out and, again, not like probe, but just a general question. Hey, you all right? How you doing? You know, hey, how you been, man? You look tired. Something, you know, something.

22:09 - Carrie Rickert And even starting with, wow, you know, that scene was so hard to see. How are you doing with it?

22:16 - Peter Forcelli Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

22:18 - Carrie Rickert Again, it's like the leading with that vulnerability and, and, you know, giving somebody an opening, but you're right. And, and I saw that certainly, you know, people not being like people being obviously impacted by some of the things that they saw. And it just being brushed under the rug. Or we would talk about it, but not to the person, because that person obviously didn't want to talk about it, so we would just talk about him.

22:54 - Peter Forcelli Right. Well, look, it cuts two ways, because I know many instances where I've responded to suicides when I was a detective, and you would hear after the fact, well, you know, we knew something was wrong, but we didn't know what. Well, did anybody approach? No. And then when you look at let's, you know, I mean, maybe this is some folks would be frustrated or upset with me for saying this. When you look at some of the things that have happened where violence is the outcome, right? And you look at some of these situations where there's a mass shooting, some of it, and I'm not justifying it, please, I hope no one ever thinks that I would do this. But when sometimes when you look at this, well, that person was bullied or that something was wrong with that. Well, no one asked or sometimes, sometimes, I mean, even school authorities or police were made aware that there was a problem. And it's like, well, okay, we, you know, we, we asked, and that was the end of it. And then in the end, because this person's just boiling over, some crazy act of violence happens, and all too often you hear, just like with the suicides, well, we knew something was up.

23:48 - Carrie Rickert Right.

23:49 - Carrie Rickert Right. Unfortunate.

23:50 - Carrie Rickert Well, yes. So, you know, and gosh, shouldn't that be a lesson to us all? And it doesn't seem, I feel like, and it sounds to me from what you're saying is that it is getting better, but I feel like there's still that disconnect of, Oh, we see something. But we're, you know, it's like, it's like the packages in the airport, right? If you see something, say something. Right. But we're not doing that with people.

24:24 - Peter Forcelli No. No. Well, I mean, again, I wasn't directly involved in the investigation into the shooting that happened in San Bernardino. But if you remember a few years back, there was a mass shooting happened, turned into a huge gunfight on a highway in San Bernardino. And there were neighbors that they interviewed after the fact who saw things. That did not want to report them because the shooters were of Middle Eastern ancestry, and they didn't want to be perceived as Islamophobic or racist, but they saw things. So, but look at that result. And imagine having to live with that, though, that, wow, I kind of knew something was happening, but I didn't say anything. And so, I mean, I do think we have problems we don't want to stigmatize in professions or even generally in society. But sometimes it's worth trying to get somebody some help. Or if you do see something, say something and maybe prevent something horrific from happening, whether someone taking their own life or someone getting to the breaking point and going out there and taking the lives of others.

25:22 - Carrie Rickert Yeah. Yeah. Well, and so years after I had left Baltimore County and I did leave Baltimore County Police Department, mostly because of that hierarchy thing, right? Like the gruff lieutenants and things. And I'm like, this is not for me.

25:43 - Carrie Rickert But one of our forensic services technicians, he actually ended up taking his own life. And, you know, so we had a bit of a reunion at his memorial service, which was just devastating. And, and I still, it still didn't sink in. Oh, maybe if we had addressed this as we were managing all of these horrible things on a regular basis, maybe this wouldn't have been the outcome. And again, it's that culture piece that I think is so hard to overcome because, you know, you signed up for this job. What did you expect?

26:30 - Peter Forcelli Right, right. And I think in some instances where you have these things available that we spoke of earlier, it's like just saying they're available isn't enough. You know what I mean? Because the culture is like, OK, that's great. But I know that if I step forward, something bad is going to happen. I'm going to lose my gun or I'm going to be suspended. There needs to be a proactive step to show that it's OK. Not just say it's here, but to proactively make sure that people know that, hey, if someone steps forward, There's not going to be an issue. And look, the same thing going back to what we were talking about earlier with the military. In the old days, I think this is in fact, I think it actually passed under Trump, believe it or not. But in the old days, if you had PTSD, they revoked your security clearance. Right? So now the VA, I guess, change that and other entities within the intelligence community change that. PTSD is no longer a guarantee that your security clearance is going to be revoked because that put you out of a job. So, I mean, even things like that where we're saying, hey, this is no longer going to be the situation for you. Might, you know, again, it's baby steps, but might cause people to come forward and seek that help. Where in the old days, it was like, wait a minute, how do I feed my family? So you're now you have this difficult decision to make, hey, something's wrong with me, and it's eating me up alive. But if I ask for help, I lose the ability to pay the mortgage and feed my family and make the car payment.

27:53 - Carrie Rickert So I mean, again, I need other kinds of help.

27:56 - Peter Forcelli Exactly. But I mean, that's why I think that and again, going back to the military, those those very affirmative steps in the right direction and publicizing them and then demonstrating that when people ask for help, that nothing is going to happen to them. And you can't necessarily publicize that because it's privacy concerns and whatnot. But I mean, when people see, hey, so and so is talking to them and he's sitting here working and he seems healthier and better and happier than others will follow suit. You know, as opposed to the old days where, oh, remember so-and-so? Yeah, he was a great guy. Yeah, he's working at the motor pool now, or he's in the property clerk's office, or some job that you'd never want to go to. And that was his punishment for having the courage, because it takes courage, to ask for help, you know?

28:42 - Unidentified Speaker Absolutely.

28:44 - Carrie Rickert And that is devastating, especially when it is a culture of toughness, right? You know? To be punished for that courage, when you know that it takes courage, to be then punished for it and belittled for it, it makes it hurt all that more.

29:10 - Peter Forcelli But, you know, I mean, to your listeners, to the folks who are listening, what I would say is, look, I spent nearly 20 years in my own head because I didn't have the courage to step forward. It was when I came out of surgery for my lung cancer that I looked at my wife and my daughter. My son was with the Coast Guard. He was away doing Coast Guard stuff. And I was thinking, you know, all of these cases that I worked and all of these you know, investigations and everything. And I was like, wait a minute, you know, I have these memories of that. And I love my family dearly, but I was so into the job and so into the culture that I didn't enjoy the vacation. Like I'd sit on the beach with my family, looking at my phone to see what, you know, what messages did I get about which case and this and that and the other thing. So it was at that point where I finally decided, hey, you know something? And that's when I sought out different remedies and meditation was the one that worked for me. But for roughly 20 years before that, I mean, I didn't have the relationship with my family that I could have had, had I asked for help. And again, you can't get that time back. But you could certainly make the moment from there forward as good as possibly can be. And look, I think recognizing we came into this profession whole. We might not be able to leave entirely whole, but let's try to leave as whole as we can. Because look, the reality, a lot of folks don't realize, I don't care what profession you're in, when you leave your company or your department or your service, branch of the service, It's going to go on without you. It's going to function. That's the nature of the beast. It's not designed to be built around you. But too many of us think that it is. And we let it identify us and rule our life. It's like, when I speak at the 9-11 Memorial and Museum, one of the closing remarks that I try to make, because I talk about resilience and what I went through on 9-11 there, is, hey, you should give your employer, your job, 100% your effort Shame on you if you give it 100% of your time. And that includes sitting home thinking about the job. When you're away from work, live life.

31:10 - Carrie Rickert Exactly. Exactly. Well, and I think that's a good point to why so many people who get to retirement age are like, what am I going to do if I'm not working? I don't even know who I am if I'm not working. And I think that that is ingrained even more in career law enforcement, career military. It is identity to a very large extent.

31:41 - Peter Forcelli No, 100%. You know, what I think helped me a lot was I stayed in touch with kids I grew up with. I think too many people that go into the military or go into law enforcement, you know, you work in an eight-hour day and then, you know, spend some time with your family. But if you're going to go out and socialize, you go to a barbecue, it's in a cop's house, all right? And you're going to go out for dinner, it's with a bunch of cops and their spouse. So it's like you're constantly talking about law enforcement or military or Navy SEALs or whatever, you pick the lane. I think it's healthy and people should proactively seek out folks to be friends with who do something completely different for them so that you're not constantly talking about the job, the job, the culture, the job, the boss, how much the boss sucks, how I mean, it's one thing or the other, where if you're with people who can't have those conversations with you, you're going to find some other interesting things to talk about and maybe even broaden yourself as a person a little bit instead of being stuck in the rut of complaining or just always being in conversations about the little world that you live in or the little profession that you operate in, you know?

32:47 - Carrie Rickert Right, right. So what would you say To a law enforcement officer who feels like they might need help, what would their first step be?

33:03 - Peter Forcelli Truthfully, the first step is if you know you need help, you're already somewhat ahead of the game. I mean, some folks don't realize what's going on in their head. I didn't know. I thought I was twice. I went to the hospital because I thought I was having a heart attack both times. They can tell if you had a heart attack by certain enzymes in your blood. My heart rhythms were fine. I didn't know. I had things going on physically that were the manifestations of PTSD. Because I didn't want to acknowledge that I had PTSD. I was in denial. I never sought help for it. So I think that, you know, that's the first thing is you, if you feel like you need help, get help. I mean, and if that doesn't mean that you have to go out there and say, hey, I'm broken, blah, blah, blah. What it means is start to explore what options are there. And it could be something as simple as, you know, and I know for some reason it's become politically incorrect to talk about this one and I'm not the most religious guy, but if you're religious and you haven't been to church in a while or temple or the mosque, go. Go and see how that works. And if that doesn't work, sometimes it could be something as simple as just get away from what you're doing, take a vacation, take a walk, go outside, don't always be inside your house. And if those things don't work, then maybe speak to a counselor or the employee assistance program or a peer, someone who's been through things that are similar to what you're going through and just have a conversation. You know, it doesn't have to be like you're pulling information out of him. It could be something very minimal to just, you know, break in the ice and kind of seeing what and what they're dealing with as well. So I just think conversation, I think, is a huge part of it. But at some point, sometimes those conversations might have to be had with people who are professionals, counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists. But I mean, the thing is, if you know you need help, that first step to go out and seek the help, man, that's the hardest step for most people. Oh, absolutely. But if you show so much courage in your career and in your job, recognize in the bigger picture that's not a lot of courage that it takes like you can be scarred up and you can be dinged up and you can be damaged goods that doesn't necessarily mean that you're not super important to your profession to your family to your friends so acknowledging that that hey I'm dinged up I'm not the same as I was that doesn't mean you're worthless or you're broken it just means that you're just a little bit different, but you can still do great things. Look, I blew the whistle on Operation Fast and Furious, a huge congressional scandal, wrote a book about it. I was dealing with PTSD while I was going through that mess. So I mean, I could have curled up into my shell and not done anything, but it wasn't the right thing to do. So again, just because you're dealing with things doesn't mean you can't still be effective and good and there for your family and your friends and your colleagues.

35:46 - Carrie Rickert Right, and actually you might be better if you are seeking that help that you need.

35:52 - Unidentified Speaker Yes.

35:54 - Carrie Rickert Yeah. Yes. So what about from the other side, from the agency side of it? What more do you think agencies and leadership in agencies can do to help protect mental health of their teams to help facilitate getting help, things like that.

36:24 - Peter Forcelli Well, the first thing is to make sure that you have assets at your disposal, right? Employee assistance programs aren't cheap. So if you can't have one, ask a neighboring agency if you can use theirs. I can tell you ATF used to send EAP folks to help other people, peer support folks. I know the NYPD has done that on some smaller occasions that I'm aware of So, I mean, that's one thing is to recognize we're all part of this larger community. But the other thing is to think strategically about what happens. And I did this when I was an executive ATF, we'd have occasionally someone who was struggling with something. And, you know, we would have conversations about, you know, within our team, we weren't just talking broadly amongst like the population, like, hey, let's make sure that so and so gets what they need. And that we support them through this. Because the second they don't feel supported or the second they feel isolated, then they're going to shut down. And there's a byproduct of that is that word gets around. So if somebody else gets slapped around for doing this, the next person's not going to step forward. So you really have to focus on on practicing what you preach, really. And then if somebody steps forward, we're gonna support them. And we're gonna think strategically about what happens if this thing goes sideways, because we don't wanna dissuade someone else from stepping forward as well. But there is, and this is the hard part, because you have to balance this, like you don't wanna stigmatize. So unless there's really some indication that somebody might hurt themselves or hurt somebody else, you don't wanna take a hard stance and take their gun. I mean, that should be a last resort. But that's challenging, though, because you own that decision. So if we say, hey, Pete's struggling and should we take his gun? I don't think we're there yet. And then Pete goes home and kills himself or shoots his whatever. You're going to have to own that as well. So I mean, they're not easy decisions. No. But you should think about them strategically and in the interest of the individual who's going through the trauma. But again, the most important thing is if you can't afford to have the assets there, like a chaplain program or whatever, see where else you can find them, you know, a partner agency, mutual aid, or if you can, look, I don't think there's any church, mosque, synagogue. There's plenty of other, you know, grant money out there. There's plenty of other charities that are looking to help people in mental health crisis. I know there's the All Secure program that deals with the military. I've had conversations with them. There's people out there that want to help. It's just a matter of sometimes you got to go out and ask them to help.

38:55 - Carrie Rickert Right. Right. Absolutely. And that is, I think, one of the most interesting things about mental health in general is that there are more resources out there than anyone knows.

39:11 - Carrie Rickert you have to look for them and you have to ask, because otherwise you don't, like, it's not going to just fall in your lap. It just doesn't. I wish it did. I wish everyone just had easy access to whatever mental health services they needed, but that's not how it works.

39:32 - Peter Forcelli No, and look, organizations need to be aware that look, you may have a million other things going on and I get it. Like you're focused on public safety. Robberies are up in this neighborhood. We've had a couple of homicides here. You got to stop and think about this too, though. You know, I mean, that's the thing. Sometimes it's, you know, it's not front of mind. How do we make it front of mind? Because your people are out there grinding it out every day. And look, we all say this, and I think most people get it. Our most precious resource in any law enforcement organization or any company is its people, right? So remember that. I get it. There's a lot of things going on, community meetings and blah, blah, blah. You hear a lot of things, a lot of noise, a lot of fog. You don't always hear about the need for mental health and to have those resources available, but you need to stop and think about it every now and then and make sure that it's there and then to make sure that it's working and then to make sure that there's no misunderstandings about the expectations and about what's going to happen if someone, ask for help. They're asking for help, not to be ostracized or disciplined or beat up on. So help them.

40:36 - Carrie Rickert Right, right. And, you know, I think another piece that is so important is not only think about it and, you know, approach it strategically, but also communicate it regularly. Yes, we have this help available. If you need help, here are the resources that we have. I have used this resource, you know, like, and again, leading, leading by with vulnerability. Sure.

41:05 - Peter Forcelli Yeah, well, I'll give credit like I live in Herndon, Virginia. Which is in Fairfax County, not far from Baltimore. And the police chief here, I've never met her. Her name's Maggie DeBoard. She is very aggressively pushing out the message about the importance of resilience and mental health awareness. I mean, if we had more chiefs like her, and I'm hearing about it, I'm not even in that organization. I mean, she's aggressively pushing it out to other law enforcement entities in this area. That's what we need. It needs to be a community of practice. Right? Individual organizations doing it is great. But when individual organizations are reaching out to other organizations and saying, hey, I'm your neighbor, and we're doing it, and I want to help you do it. And if you can't, well, maybe we can provide some resources to help. I mean, that's what's going to really change the game, I think, is one is getting rid of the culture we spoke of earlier of, hey, you don't do that, but also having a community of practice where we're all on the same page as organizations. And I think a lot of organizations, not just in law enforcement, but even in the in the public sector, or the private sector, rather, have come a long way. But we still got still got a ways to go.

42:11 - Carrie Rickert Yeah, absolutely. I and I love that community practice. I think that that's, you know, I think so often we lose sight of how we are all connected. And, you know, we like to keep our resources kind of tucked into our own little world, right? And what actually would be beneficial to everyone is if we have that community practice. Look at what we're doing here. Let's help you do this too. I think that's fabulous.

42:50 - Peter Forcelli Yeah. Look, I get it. These aren't cheap things, right? This is expensive. But guess what? So is retention and recruiting. And if you're keeping your people on, and you're keeping them healthy physically and mentally, they're going to stay longer. They're going to stay. Exactly. Exactly. So I mean, yes, it's expensive, but it pays back. Yes, absolutely.

43:10 - Carrie Rickert So I'm going to turn this a little bit, because I know you do have a book coming out. Or is it already out, or it's coming soon?

43:19 - Peter Forcelli It's out. It hit the shelves on March 5th. It's called The Deadly Path. Yeah. And it's about something that I dealt with in Phoenix back from 2007 till just around 2012, which was just my agents were trying to put people in jail for trafficking guns to Mexico. And we ran into a lot of pushed back from the United States Attorney's Office. And then our mission changed and a new group of agents was brought out there and stood up. And they were letting guns go to Mexico to build the case. And a Border Patrol agent named Brian Terry was murdered with one of those guns. And then all of a sudden, everyone started denying that that investigation strategy was to let guns be walked across the border. So I stepped forward and blew the whistle in front of Congress. And for the next four years, wound up having to defend my reputation and find myself under investigation for four years. But in the end, I was able to prevail, thank God. But yeah, so it's a nonfiction book about some pretty bad stuff that happened in Phoenix for about five years.

44:25 - Carrie Rickert Wow. Wow. And you said earlier, you were writing that as you were coming to terms with your PTSD. And I'm sure that that was adding to your trauma, right? That situation.

44:39 - Peter Forcelli Well, no, I was dealing with that situation while I had PTSD. And I think that I was so ground down, and it's going to sound weird, by what I was dealing with physically, that it almost made me not care. Because I mean, look, blowing the whistle is risky, because your career could be ended. And I was at the point where I just didn't care, which is not a great place to be. So I started writing the book after I retired, because I couldn't tell the story while I was with ATF, because DOJ just doesn't allow it. But I mean, one of the things was what happened there should never happen again, and a border patrol agent is dead, and that's unconscionable. But ATF and the Department of Justice, after this happened, kept it quiet. They didn't want to talk about it. Well, I'm a firm believer that if you don't know history, you can possibly repeat history. So I wanted to tell the story so that folks know what really happened there. Because agents in Phoenix, not everybody was involved or not. And when agents outside of Phoenix had no idea what was even happening there. But more importantly, Brian Terry's family was never given any real answers as to what happened. And that really bothered me for years because I met them. And they were nice people. And they lost Brian valiantly in the line of duty. The guy was a hero. And to me, it was such a disservice that his country never came clean about what happened and what led up to Operation Fast and Furious. So, I mean, if there's any piece that I found in writing the book, it was that at least they would have some answers. I don't have all the answers. I'm not that silly to think that I do. And truthfully, I've heard from his brother and sisters, mostly on social media, and they were grateful and they did find some peace in what is in the book. So that was somewhat cathartic for me.

46:20 - Carrie Rickert Yeah, yeah. So, um, so the book came out in March, where can people get the book?

46:30 - Peter Forcelli It's available on Amazon. Again, it's called The Deadly Path, and it's got a subtitle, How Operation Fast and Furious and Bad Lawyers Armed Mexican Cartels. It's on Amazon. It's on Barnes and Noble, all the big retail bookstore websites. If somebody wants a signed copy, they can go on my website. It's www.peterjforcelli.com. I'm not as fast as Amazon to get stuff signed and out because I got to order them, sign them, and send them. But if somebody wanted a signed copy, they can get it that way.

47:01 - Carrie Rickert OK, cool. And I'll make sure that all of that is in our show notes and everything, too, so that people can get a hold of you if they want a signed copy. And I'll put a link to Amazon and Barnes & Noble as well. Thank you. So before we close today, if there is one thing that you think is most important for our listeners to take away from this conversation, what do you think that would be?

47:30 - Peter Forcelli Two very quick things. I spoke about what I went through for 20 years, not being me, being stuck in my own head. I wasn't this miserable person, but I wasn't what I could have been. And I feel that I lost some time in my life by just being stuck in there, not getting help. So number one is don't be me. Do it sooner. Don't wait 20 years. Don't wait a year. And then finally, like I mentioned earlier, it's super important because reputations do matter. Give your employer and your job, or really whatever you do, 100% of your effort, but don't give it 100% your time. Make time for family, make time to take care of yourself, because if you don't take care of yourself, you can't take care of your family, and you can't really be very good at what you do at work. I mean, to be whole, you need to take care of all of those things.

48:22 - Carrie Rickert Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, Pete. I have really enjoyed this conversation. It has been absolutely fantastic having you on the podcast.

48:31 - Peter Forcelli It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

48:33 - Carrie Rickert Absolutely.