Serving those who protect and serve

    The statistics are chilling.
    Police officers across the country have an 80-percent divorce rate and commit suicide at a rate highly disproportionate to those in the general population.
    In a job where they meet people at their worst and where a routine stop can be transformed suddenly into a life-and-death decision, it is little wonder that leaving “the office” often means coping through self-medication and abusing alcohol and drugs.

    And, they are more likely to get a scowl than a hug after handing someone a ticket for running a red light.

    Kathy Radke-Storey has seen it all. She started out in 1990 as a volunteer Jefferson Parish prison chaplain, working with inmates to amend their lives and find God. But while she found her subsequent work fulfilling as the parish’s fulltime Protestant prison chaplain, Radke-Storey always had the nagging feeling that the sheriff’s deputies themselves got the short end of the stick.

Post-Katrina need identified

    That feeling intensified after Katrina, when teams of chaplains from around the country descended on the New Orleans area to offer help specifically to the police officers and sheriff’s deputies who were operating on fumes. That experience convinced Radke-Storey, whose husband Robert Storey is a pastor at Celebration Church Westbank, to take the first baby steps toward creating a chaplains’ program to minister directly to deputies.
    Sheriff Newell Normand gave her the go-ahead to “take the ball and run with it,” and she attended a training session in 2008 at the International Conference of Police Chaplains in Mobile.
    “It was like the light started coming on,” Radke-Storey recalled. “I realized some of the things I was struggling with at the jail. I was trying to ‘save the world,’ and the deputies kind of had this jaded view, and so they were always shooting me down. I didn’t understand why. I would always say, ‘Why don’t you all see that when you change the heart you change the individual?’ But because of what they had seen and been through, they weren’t quite as hopeful as I was.”
    Still, it took a helpful chaplain from Knoxville, Tenn., at the 2009 conference to finally fill in the jigsaw puzzle for Radke-Storey.
    “I felt like I was at the point where I had to put up or shut up,” she said. “I knew I could get the ministers, but I didn’t feel qualified to do the training. We sat and talked for about two hours. He told me, ‘You recruit the chaplains, and we’ll do the training.’”
 

Wide cross-section of faiths
     At the first chaplains’ academy in Harvey, 30 clergy from several denominations showed up. The class included two Catholic priests (Fathers John Talamo and Bernie Terrebonne), three deacons (Deacons Bill Jarrell, Tom Guntherberg and Dean Herrick) and an 80-year-old nun, Daughter of Charity Sister Anthony Barczykowski.
    The chaplains take intensive training to learn not only police work but also what their role is. They are to serve as a “presence,” a listening ear to the deputies during their once monthly ride-alongs in the car. They agree be on 24-hour call one day a month in case there is a need for a chaplain in cases of a domestic abuse case or a death.
    They are not there to proselytize. They are there to listen and support. What convinced Normand of the need for the outreach was this stunning stat: in one year, 450 officers died across the country, including 85 who were killed in the line of duty. However, more officers committed suicide than were killed on the job.

    “That’s because it’s hard for them not to bring the job home,” Robert Storey said. “Because of what they see, it’s hard for them not to get a real jaded view of society.”
 

Stress is withering
    Father Talamo, who grew up on the West Bank, is now the pastor of Our Lady of the Lake Church in Mandeville. He has been involved with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office for the last nine years, and he knows this spiritual service is critically needed.
    “The stress is unbelievable,” Father Talamo said. “That time in the car is a great time of just being with the deputy. You hear a lot as you’re riding with them, and they want to bounce all these ideas off you – ‘What’s the church’s perspective on this? What does the church teach about that?’ We don’t try to convert any of the deputies. We’re there as a priestly presence or a chaplain’s presence.”
    Sometimes, Father Talamo will get a call in the middle of the night from a deputy trying to unwind from a death or a tragic accident he just saw.
    “Sometimes maybe you’re just a shoulder to cry on,” Father Talamo said. “It’s interesting. When you have these kinds of events, the deputies will follow up and call you. We’ll just talk.”
 

Takes pressure off officers
    Father Terrebonne, the pastor of St. Matthew the Apostle in River Ridge, said he was interested in the chaplain’s program because he has served as a military chaplain and found that rewarding. In addition to the training, prospective chaplains are interviewed by a panel of sheriff’s office officials and submit to a background check.
    “If you have a chaplain on site, the theory is that the deputies can do their investigation and you can handle the people or maybe the victim’s relatives,” Father Terrebonne said. “Everyone wants to cross the police line when you’ve got a tragedy. A chaplain can be that consoling factor to calm them down so they’re out of the officer’s hair. You’re not coming across as Godzilla.”
    After a man in his 50s committed suicide one night, Radke-Storey and her husband got to the house and saw family members in various stages of shock. The wife was sitting on the floor, leaning against a sofa, crying uncontrollably.
    “That was my first suicide,” Radke-Storey said. “The daughter was in the driveway, just stone cold, and the son was outside leaning against his truck, so angry. We wound up going to the funeral, and the father of the wife of the deceased said, ‘When you and your husband walked in that night, it was like everything just calmed down.’”
 

Following orders to a ‘T’
    Deacon Jarrell, who does prison ministry in addition to his ministry at Christ the King Church in Terrytown, said the chaplains learn early to follow the exact orders of the deputies, especially on routine stops.
    “If it’s a traffic stop, our normal procedure is to get out of the car so we can see into the window on the opposite side and just watch the hands and let the officer know,” Deacon Jarrell said. “We wear bulletproof vests for two reasons. One, it’s for our own protection. Two, it’s to give peace of mind to the officer so that he knows we are protected, so he doesn’t have to worry about protecting us as much.”
    Major Kerry Najolia, who handles the chaplains’ training for the JPSO, said the chaplains have been a blessing to the department because of the rapport and the sense of trust they have developed with deputies.
    “There are absolutely a lot of things that could cause conflict, but the chaplains are so professional and dedicated,” Najolia said. “The main thing is that they just listen to the officers. They also come on the scene and there’s an automatic presence that they have. They can comfort the victim, and maybe the officer is able to get better information about the elements of a crime. This has been a very advantageous situation.”
 

Looking for more chaplains
    Radke-Storey hopes to double the pool of trained chaplains from 35 to more than 60, which would allow more flexibility covering the “on-call” assignments for both the east and west banks. Another recruiting class will be formed in the next several weeks.
    The need is great. She remembers being called out to a double homicide – two brothers had been murdered in their truck – and then seeing the mother, who had just been released from the hospital, arrive at the scene.
    “All I could do was rub her back and sing ‘Amazing Grace’ while they were putting her only two children in body bags,” Radke-Storey said. “It was my first murder scene, and it was traumatic enough, but it felt good knowing I could be there with the community – for the community – but also know I was assisting the officers.”
    She got wonderful affirmation during her first ride-along, when she stopped with other deputies for pizza.
    “One of the deputies had been a correctional officer, and he said, ‘I always wondered why the inmates got all of the support, and we didn’t have anything,’” Radke-Storey said. “And I said, ‘Well, that’s why we’re here.’”
    Peter Finney Jr. can be reached at [email protected]