Showing posts with label assault. Show all posts
Showing posts with label assault. Show all posts
Friday, October 16, 2009
Carolina Forest High School: Not By the Book
There was a school shooting in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina this morning, and a 16 year old boy is dead. That, by itself, is very upsetting, certainly to the people who were there, but also to society as a whole, as we reflect on what our world has come to that someone can be shot in school. And that's where it gets, well, weird.
The details are still dribbling in, but as best as we can tell, Trevor Varinecz, a junior at Carolina Forest High School, asked to see the school resource officer -- a police officer stationed at the school -- at about 8:25 this morning. The door to the room where the two met was closed, so no one knows for sure just yet, but it appears that Varinecz stabbed Officer Marcus Rhodes and Rhodes shot Varinecz in self-defense. Rhodes is in the hospital. Needless to say, if there is such a thing as a "typical school shooting," this is not it.
When you train as an early crisis responder, you learn that there are certain patterns that different types of incidents fall into. While each incident is different, there are predictable themes that come up. Suicides cause one set of reactions, natural disasters another, domestic violence yet another. You can expect different things from those who have been involved in car accidents than from those who witnessed a mass shooting. No two incidents have exactly the same reactions, but you can prepare. From time to time, as a responder, you work on an incident and come out saying, "that was page 73 of the textbook." Sometimes it is that cut and dried.
A good Critical Incident Stress Management Team knows what to expect from an officer involved shooting. They know what to expect when an officer is injured. They know the patterns when a child dies, and those from violence in a school. They even know that sometimes two types of incidents combine into one event.
All that having been said, I don't think there is a team in the country that feels truly prepared for what happened at Carolina Forest High School today. There is no page in the textbook for the injury of an officer at a school in an incident resulting in an officer involved shooting of a child. As a school CISM Team Leader myself, I look at this incident and have to take a few moments just to swear under my breath before I can even consider where I would start.
This is just one more reminder that emergency preparedness isn't just about practicing for every awful event you can imagine. It's also about developing a tool kit of skills and the creativity and flexibility to use them in new ways, when those things that you can't possibly imagine in a million years happen on your watch.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Justice and the Healing of Trauma
Jennifer Schuett was 8 years old in 1990 when she was kidnapped from her bedroom, sexually assaulted, had her throat slashed and was left for dead in a field. Her voice was damaged in the attack and she could not scream for help. She told investigators she knew she was going to die. She didn't. Not only did she live, but she was able to help with a sketch of her attacker and his first name.
Today, 19 years later, modern science did the rest. A suspect was arrested based on a DNA match with evidence at the scene. The suspect's DNA was in the system from a very similar attack on an adult woman for which he has served time. At a press conference, Schuett, now 27, said,
This event in my life was a tragic one, but today, 19 years later, I stand here and want you all to know that I am OK. I am not a victim, but instead, victorious.Schuett went public with her story in hopes of finally finding the perpetrator. She wants to encourage other victims of violent crime to speak out.
A common and simple summary of this story would say that Schuett will finally get "closure." If authorities have arrested the right man, the perpetrator of her attack is no longer a threat to her and will go to jail. But saying that she now has closure is far too simplistic. Trauma isn't quite that linear and straightforward.
Those who have experienced trauma -- whether from crime or from less nefarious sources -- experience it as a series of events. There is the initial critical incident -- the one that shakes their world view and makes them feel completely off center. Then there are other events, often less severe in their impact, which represent new chapters in their understanding and processing of the experience.
One need only look at the video of Schuett's press conference and listen to her tears to know that this is not "closed." That in no way makes her less of a survivor, or less victorious, or less strong. What it does mean is that once a traumatic incident occurs, it is always a part of the people it impacts. They may process it, incorporate it, and understand it, but it will never be gone.
Most likely, Schuett had acclimated to the "new normal" as a tween, teen, and young adult who had survived a vicious attack. Now, she will acclimate to a new, new normal, where the alleged perpetrator is brought to justice. She will come to understand what that means for her, and she will move on to the next thing. While getting there will, hopefully, not be anywhere near as difficult as processing the original incident must have been, it will still take some doing. If her past history is any indication, she is certainly strong enough to accomplish the task.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Mont Vernon, NH: It Happens Everywhere
This weekend, a woman and her daughter were attacked during a 4 AM home invasion on an isolated road in Mont Vernon, NH. Kimberly Cates, 42, was killed in the attack. Her daughter, Jaime, 11, survived and is in intensive care. Four teenagers who live about 15 miles away have been charged in the attack. The allegation is that these young men selected the house at random because of its isolated location, and agreed to kill whomever they found inside. Depending on which coverage you read, they either intended to rob the house and would kill the occupants if necessary, or they went in with the sole intent of killing the occupants.
This is a horrific crime by any standard. It is made to appear even more awful by the fact that the last violent crime in Mont Vernon, before this one, was 10 years ago. The statements being made by residents and even officials in the aftermath of this incident reflect the fact that the traumatizing thing about this crime is not just the crime itself, but how unexpected it was in this town:
From the Senior Assistant Attorney General:
"This type of murder does not happen very often. This is something out of the ordinary."
From the senior photo editor of the Nashua (NH) Telegraph:
"The people up here aren't used to this kind of thing. This never really happens."
From a resident:
"I've lived in Mont Vernon for 40 years, and this is just unbelievable."
From the chair of the Mont Vernon board of selectmen:
“It’s very much that bucolic, Norman-Rockwell-type New England setting. . . . This brings it home, that people who do bad things are everywhere, not just in big cities.”
From a neighbor:
"It's just unbelievable that this could happen next door to us."
I will admit that none of these statements sat well with me at first blush. On the one hand, I certainly understand that violence is more prevalent in some places than in others, and that Mont Vernon, before this weekend, had been one of the "others." On the other hand, it can appear that by saying, "this isn't supposed to happen here," people imply that it is supposed to happen somewhere else, when of course it shouldn't happen anywhere.
At the same time, I think we all intuitively understand that violent crime is more shocking when it occurs in a place with very little violence. It's not too hard to imagine why, either. The more violence you are exposed to on a regular basis, the more your world view incorporates the possibility of violence. When a violent death occurs, it is not as violating of your deeply held beliefs, because those have already shifted ahead of time to accept the possibility that something like this could happen. In some sense, people who live in violent communities get their pre-incident inoculation training simply by living where they do every day.
It's important to remember, however, that no amount of pre-incident inoculation can prepare you for this happening to someone close to you. It is one thing to know that violence happens in your community and to not be traumatized when it occurs around the corner or down the block. It is quite another to be "used to" someone in your family being murdered in their own home. I don't think that is possible. While our world view may come to incorporate the possibility of violence, it can't really incorporate the sudden and violent death of someone important to us.
When it comes right down to it, the greater power of incidents like this murder in Mont Vernon is its effect on the community, not on those closely tied to the victim. Whether you live in Mont Vernon, NH or Detroit or L.A., if someone you love is murdered in their bed you will be traumatized. The power of the Mont Vernon murder is in its impact on the other residents. No one in Detroit or L.A. thinks this sort of thing doesn't happen here. For Mont Vernon, this is a very traumatic wake-up call.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Pregnant and Scared, But Should You Be?
Yair Anthony Carillo is back home with his mother tonight, after a first two weeks of life with more drama than most adults can even dream of. Carillo was kidnapped last Tuesday at the age of 4 days. His mother was stabbed and left to bleed to death by a woman who, apparently, was intent on passing him off as her son, adopted from a "friend" who was "going to jail." He was found on Saturday, but after a brief visit with his mother both he and his three siblings were placed in foster care while child welfare personnel investigated an allegation that someone in the family had tried to sell the children. Yair's parents have now been cleared.
Every so often, one of these stories grabs our attention. A woman late in pregnancy or having just given birth is attacked and often killed. The baby is stolen. Often, we later learn that the kidnapper has been telling friends she is pregnant or, less frequently, about to adopt a baby. The stories make news because they are sensational, and America loves anything having to do with a baby. From time to time we get word of a missing pregnant woman, and those stories also get a fair amount of attention. Most commonly, those women are white and relatively affluent. They are frequently found dead or never found at all. And, most commonly, their husbands or boyfriends are charged with the crime.
The fact of the matter is, homicide is the second most common cause of non-health-related death for pregnant women. It is more common than suicide and somewhere behind car accidents. Headlines on this topic say things like "Homicide: A Leading Cause of Death Among Pregnant Women." The stories then go on to tell us that one third of pregnant women who are murdered are murdered by their intimate partner.
All of this is enough to whip you into a frenzy, but as with most statistics it's a good idea to look a little deeper. First of all, the leading cause of death among pregnant women is not homicide. It is pregnancy. About 7.5 pregnant women die per 100,000 live births in the United States right now (down, I should point out, from about 850 per 100,000 in 1900) due to pregnancy-related complications.
Second, the homicide rate among pregnant women is actually lower than in the population at large. While the homicide rate in the United States in 2008 was 5.4 per 100,000, the rate among pregnant women is somewhere around 1.7 per 100,000. So how can homicide be both at a lower rate for pregnant women and a leading cause of death? It's all in how you look at the data.
Pregnant women are less likely to die from some other causes of death than the general population. Their suicide rate is somewhat lower, as is their rate of auto accidents. The fact that homicide appears higher in the list of causes of death, however, does not mean that pregnant women are more likely to be murdered than other women. They're not. They're just more likely to have been murdered if they die at all, if their death was not caused by the pregnancy, than they are to have died by some other means. That's a lot of ifs.
What's more, the typical homicide of a pregnant woman, furthermore, is not a kidnapping attack, nor is it the murder of a white, affluent woman. It is very disproportionately the murder of an African-American woman who is poor and has not received adequate prenatal care and who is murdered by her spouse or boyfriend. It is a sad commentary that those cases almost never make the news at all.
So before we all get into a panic about the safety of pregnant women and their babies, it might be a good idea to take a deep breath and realize that what we're really reacting to isn't really the rate of homicide. It's the fact that pregnant women are murdered at all, which offends our sense of motherhood and pregnancy as being sacrosanct. We imagine that someone who would kill a pregnant woman would kill anyone, which makes us all feel unsafe. In the end, however, while any homicide is a traumatic tragedy, the murder of a pregnant woman isn't really that different than the murders we ignore in this country every day.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Tashawnea Hill: Won't Somebody Think of the Children?
Some of the facts are not in dispute. Tashawnea Hill, a 35 year-old army reservist, was taking her 7 year-old daughter to dinner at a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Poulan, Georgia on the evening of September 9. A White man was coming out of the door when Hill, who is African-American, and her daughter were about to go in, and Hill believed that he almost hit her daughter in the face with the door. She exchanged words with the man, and he beat her in full view of her daughter.
The only facts in dispute are what exactly Hill said to the man, whether, as he alleges, she spit on him, and whether, as she alleges, he shouted racial and sexist epithets at her as he beat her. The FBI is investigating this as a hate crime, and the police say that witness statements and surveillance footage indicate the attack was unprovoked.
The man who beat Ms. Hill is charged with misdemeanor battery and disorderly conduct. He is also charged with cruelty to children even though everyone agrees he did not hit the daughter. Let's hear it for Georgia law enforcement for understanding that damage to children doesn't necessarily require physical contact.
The police report described the daughter's reaction in vivid terms. When officers arrived, she was
crying uncontrollably and her body [was] shaking/trembling.
This is a very typical reaction for a child -- and for an adult -- who has witnessed a traumatic incident. In addition to watching her mother be attacked, this girl has to have feared for her own safety. And where does a 7 year-old run when her mother is being beaten? Where does she believe is safe? Probably nowhere.
I've written a lot in this space about the way trauma violates our world view. In this instance, that is doubly the case. While Tasha Hill knew before September 9 that the world can be dangerous, but probably did not operate with that in the front of her mind day in and day out. Her daughter, at 7, was most likely at a stage where she believed her mother was powerful and would keep her safe. Little kids scare more easily than adults, but they also fundamentally think adults can protect them. When this girl saw her mother beaten, she was suddenly and shockingly exposed to the danger her mother was in and the fact that her mother could not keep that danger away from her. That's a big lesson for a little girl.
And of course, that's without dealing with the obvious other ways this incident will affect Ms. Hill's daughter. She not only saw her mother attacked, but she allegedly saw her attacked for being an African-American female. That has to have an impact on a little African-American girls' sense not only of safety but of self esteem and self worth. The bottom line is, if I were she, I'd be shaking too.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Tom Barrett's Recovery
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett held his first news conference since being beaten after attempting to get emergency help for a woman and baby near the Wisconsin State Fair over the weekend. I blogged a few days ago about this incident, and about the complicated nature of psychological healing after a traumatic incident in which you are being hailed as the hero. I neglected, however, to talk about the added complexity of things when you are a politician, and everything you say or do is already incredibly complex.
Barrett does some interesting things in this news conference. After he introduces the various members of his family who are there and thanks his wife for being by his side, he introduces his niece, Molly, again and points out how terrific she was in the emergency. Then he goes on to explain why his security detail was not with him. Next, he characterizes the situation as one which any citizen of his city would have responded to in the same way, and then he starts to describe what happened, again pointing out that his niece did just what he did.
I think there are a number of things going on here. One is that this is a politician, and politicians always need to worry about how they come across. He can't be the only hero in Milwaukee -- this has to be something anyone would do -- because that makes citizens feel good about themselves and they associate that food feeling with him and vote for him. Imagine how obnoxious he would seem if he came out and said, "I know I was really brave and heroic, and few would do what I did." That would be the end of his career right then and there.
Another thing you see is Barrett explaining away some criticism -- that he didn't have his security detail -- up front. Part of this, too, is simply that he is a public figure. But part, also, may represent him thinking through what could have happened differently. Just about anyone who has ever been assaulted has questioned if they could have prevented it. I'm sure he has, too.
You also see Barrett talking repeatedly about his niece. This is, in part, because he is a nice person and a good uncle and he wants her to get some credit for what she did, as well she should. Realizing that she acted just as he did also helps all of us, and Barrett himself, focus again on the fact that this was random and that he wasn't doing anything wrong. Again, he has thought through whether he could have or should have prevented what happened. If Molly called 911, and if any citizen would have called 911, then calling 911 was not the wrong thing to do. And yes, I have heard criticism in the last few days suggesting he shouldn't have.
During the Q&A, someone asked what he was thinking during the attack. He replies, "This is really bad, this is really bad." Then a reporter mentions that her viewers are calling Barrett their hero, and asks for a reaction. He says that Molly's his hero. At this point, I have to say I don't think this is posturing or politics at all. This is a man who knows he could have been killed and knows who he has to thank for that not happening. A pure politician would have stuck with "I did what anyone would have done" and maybe claimed that during the attack he was concerned for the safety of his family or the baby and grandmother. This is an honest person who has experienced trauma speaking. It rings true.
But perhaps the part of the press conference that touched me the most was at the very end. In talking about the support he has received from others -- including a phone call from President Obama -- he said it meant a great deal to him because, "This is tough." I don't think he only meant physically.
Below is a link to the full video of the news conference, although you will have to go to Youtube to watch it.
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Meet the Quarterback
- Naomi Zikmund-Fisher
- is a clinical social worker, former school Principal and a Crisis Consultant for schools and community organizations. You can learn more about her at www.SchoolCrisisConsultant.com
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