Aftermath · 13 of 16 · Care for the People Behind the Badge
The Abrupt Notification
Editorial introduction
In this post from John Cooley, attention turns to the people who hear of an officer’s death first: the chief, the command staff, the chaplain, and the funeral coordinator. He describes how often they learn it in a brusque phone call, and what a few extra seconds of thought change for them. It is a reminder that compassion for the team carrying the first message begins long before anyone reaches the family’s door.
As a funeral coordinator I have been involved in numerous death notifications. We always prepared ourselves for notifying the surviving spouse and family. We always followed the COPS guidelines of “In Time, In Person, In Plain Language, With Compassion and In Pairs.” However, as I got some experience I became aware that we weren’t treating our own people who were the first to be notified with as much preparation and compassion as we provided for the surviving family. Then I realized that often I had been notified of a death, at times of someone I knew, in a very brusque and abrupt manner. One I didn’t appreciate but didn’t have time to deal with.
As I would be involved with command and staff officers and chaplains and agency psychologists, those typically part of the notification team, I learned that they were the first to be notified of the death and were often informed in a very abrupt non-compassionate manner. They would get a phone call from a supervisor whose objective was to follow the telephone notification list in the agency manual. The supervisor was involved in a crisis situation and things were chaotic and being “compassionate” was not something he gave a great deal of thought.
There is a difference between the chief or command officer being called and told, “Chief, John Cooley was just killed in a shoot out.” As compared to, “Chief, it’s difficult for me to tell you but there was a robbery and a shooting and John Cooley was critically wounded. I need to inform you that he died at the scene.” Give the person being notified time to process the information and be emotionally prepared for the information they know is coming. It takes some pre-planning and thought and a few extra seconds but it’s the compassionate thing to do.
Everyone who is notified or informed of the incident and the death needs to have it done with compassion. This includes the funeral coordinator. In small agencies especially, everyone knows everyone and any notification will be to someone who knows the deceased officer. Regardless of how well or how poorly the crisis is being managed, there is no reason every notification cannot be done with compassion, in time, and in plain language.
By John Cooley
The solution · Checklist
Compassionate Notification of Our Own People
New checklist, drafted from this reading. Builds on Checklists 01 and 03.
Plan the calls
- Walk the agency’s telephone notification list before the call comes, not during the crisis.
- Name who makes each call, and brief that person on how to make it.
- Remember that in a small agency everyone knows the officer.
Make the call
- Open gently: “It’s difficult for me to tell you…”
- Give the circumstances first, then the death, in plain language.
- Give the person time to process before the next fact.
- Notify the funeral coordinator the same way: in time, in plain language, with compassion.
Hold the same standard
- Prepare for the command officers, chaplains, and agency psychologists as carefully as for the family.
- For the family: In Time, In Person, In Plain Language, With Compassion, and In Pairs.