![]() Officers like 35-year-old Vaughan may be among the luckier ones. “I’m very concerned about our officers’ mental health,” he says. According to preliminary data that he and his research team collected, the rate of PTSD went up by about 30% from January 2020 to April 2021. Early data suggest that burnout and depression are rising among police officers, says John Violanti, a professor of epidemiology and environmental health at the University of Buffalo, and a leading expert on police stress. ![]() Last year’s events have left another mark. (Chauvin was soon fired and was later convicted of murder.) Cellphone images were broadcast to the world, waves of protests and riots swept the country, and anti-police sentiment soared. ![]() It’s past eight in the morning as he sits down at the agency’s Buford Highway headquarters, the quiet beginning of a 12-hour shift that can spin into a major crisis within seconds.Īfter several high-profile police killings of Black Americans by white officers in recent years, tensions reached a boiling point in the late spring of 2020, when George Floyd died under the knee of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Vaughan works patrol at the Brookhaven Police Department. “I guess the answer, for now, is I’m still here,” the 13-year police veteran says with a thin smile. Credit: Katja Ridderbusch/Georgia Health NewsĮvery once in a while, after working long and sometimes grueling shifts, after getting yelled at and spat on and occasionally having plastic cups thrown at him, Officer Brian Vaughan feels so worn down that he wonders if being a cop is still worth it.
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