Breaking News
Police Shortage Hits Critical Mass         Troopers Accused in OT Scam         DROP Lawsuit: Judge Rules Against Cops         The Real Reason They’re After Your Pension? Money!         DROP Program Getting Negative Press         Millennials, White-collar Workers Bringing New Life to Unions         New Study Reveals Police Rarely Use Force         Fake Cop Badges are Everywhere         Best Path for a Trim, Healthy Body         Teachers Get 5% After Strike; Victory for Cops, Too!         When is Police “Use of Force” Justified?         Police Unions & the Video Craze         Scary Day for Police Unions         Night Tours Can Hurt Your Health         Stress Weakens Brain Power; Exercise Can Bring It Back         Police Association President Arrests Suspect—On His Street!         An Assault on Common Sense         NYPD Sergeant Acquitted On All Charges         Fingerprint Scanner to Track On-the-job Time         New Jersey Cops Fighting for Their Pensions         Police and Attorney Say “No Way” to Restrictive Use of Force Policy         Jury Is Out On This Police Review Board         A Police Union With Power!         Stressed-Out Officers: Gone After Eight Years         More Union Members in 2017         Police, Fire Lose Court Fight Over Pensions         Baltimore Discovers It Wants and Needs Its Police         VIDEO: Austin Cops Leaving in Droves         Off-Duty Jobs Scam Uncovered         Deputies Demand $500,000 In Back Pay         Stressed Out Officers, Gone After 8 Years         City Scrambles to Save Pensions         Police Boss Gets Jail Time, Rank and File Up In Arms         CONTRACT REJECTED! Younger Officers Upset With High Healthcare Costs         Police Pensions Protected (For Now)         Let’s Support Firefighters; Cops Will Be Next         Man With a Plan         FBI Will Not Investigate Detective’s Homicide         What About “Warning Shots?” The Debate Continues         Dallas 9-1-1 Back On Track         Hope for Pay Raises in St. Louis         VIDEO: NYC Hero Cop Speaks         New Policies on Deadly Force         ALADS Continues Legal Fight Over “Brady” List         Cops Forgo Raise to Keep 4-3 Schedule         One Cop’s Take On Colin Kaepernick         VIDEO: “We Brought Our Brother Home”         LISTEN: No Sleep? You’d Better Fix That!         VIDEO: What Really Happened         ACLU: Detective’s Right to Free Speech Was Violated         Time To Stop the Finger Pointing         If Things Go Bad, You Need a Plan         Dear Anthem Protesters: Police are Not the Enemy         Real Police Facing Private Takeover         Hard Work, Heartache, and a Lot of Love         VIDEO: Harvey’s Horrific Aftermath         VIDEO: Keeping World Leaders Safe         Bill Bratton On the Future of American Policing         Who Will Pay for New Contract?         VIDEO: Detectives Fight Plan to Cut Pensions         Taking Care of Others, Then Our Own         Public Support For Unions is Growing         Minneapolis Considering Residency Incentives         VIDEO: Cop Battling Cancer is Harvey Hero         VIDEO: Dancing With the Cops?         Cops Speak Out Against Use of “Thin Blue Line” by Hate Groups         What Is the Arnold Foundation Hiding?         Decision May Violate Officers’ Rights         Court Deems Evergreen Clause Constitutional         No Raises for Cops; $140M for Stadium         Philly Cops Win $8M O.T. Settlement         We Condemn Nazis and White Supremacists         Mounties Face Crisis, No Solution in Sight         Push to Oust Louisville PD Chief Intensifying         CSLEA is Newest Member of PubSecAlliance         Ford is Fixing the Problem         “It’s Been An Honor to Work With Chief Marshman”         Automatic Dues Collection Under Attack         Cops Use Video to Go for Pay Raise         Understaffed Leads to Rise In Crime         R.I.P. Deputy Haak         Ruling On Body Cams: Use Must Be Negotiated         Rochester Police Locust Club (NY) Joins PubSecAlliance         Officer Acquitted Of Negligent Homicide         Texas Cops Oppose Anti-Union Bill         Insults Divide, Decency Unites         FOP Prez Threatened, Police Investigate         VIDEO: Sergeant’s Indictment Prompts Outpouring of Support         VIDEO: Sounding the Alarm On a Manpower Crisis         VIDEO: Dramatic Body Cam Footage!         VIDEO: Police Union Advises Action Amid “Breaking Point”         VT First State to OK Compensation for PTSD         Officer Suicides: Agencies Must Do More         Outsiders Clamor for Police Contract Changes         Governor Furloughs Workers, Hits the Beach         Recruit the Best at U.S. Army Reserves         VIDEO: Sergeant Charged With Murder 2         R.I.P. Officer Korchak         More Officers Taking Own Lives         Pride in Honoring Our Own         A Tale of Two Chiefs         New Accountability System Gives Civilians More Power         Police Unions Call for “Rational Voice”         Texas Moves to Save Pensions         City Refuses to Pay Officer’s Legal Bills         Rank and File Question Dubious Hiring         The Mounties Have Never Had to Contend With a Union         Police Week: Anguish, Anger, Empathy         Rookies Sue for OT Pay During Academy Training         FLSA Pay Ruling: Use Cash, Not Benefits         Record Crowd Attends Annual Candlelight Vigil         Everyone Needs Sleep, Especially Cops         Questions Raised About New John Jay President         Hennepin County Sheriff Joins NYPD Shield Program         Big Surprise: Paper Misrepresents Contract Talks         County Budget Leaves Us Underfunded         VIDEO: Omaha Unions Say No to Gov         City Says “No Police Floats” In Parade         One-Minute Man         Is This the Solution to Cop Shootings?         Ingredients for Better LE Outcomes         Why the Police Need Unions         Mounties Demand a Union & Contract         Indebted to Some Very Brave People         We’ve Been Abandoned by Politicos, Command Staff         VIDEO: The Most Hated Man In Pensionland         Underfunded Pensions: a Disaster Waiting to Happen         Another Ambush Attack!         Today, It’s You; Tomorrow, It’s a Security Guard         VIDEO: NJ Police May Get Control of Unfunded Pensions         Thousands of Officers to Get BIG Bonuses         Improving Economy Hurts LE Recruitment         Another Fundraising Scam         Threats to Police Retirement Programs Escalate         Conflict Rises, Billboards Go Up         NJ Unilaterally Changing Police Contract         Pensions Slowly Being Reduced and Replaced         Baltimore Chief: “No More Plainclothes”         When Will All This Stop?         Top Police Union Leader Joins Protest         VIDEO: “Line of Duty” is HERE!         Chicago Cops Get Thanks They Deserve         Mayors Missing as Pension Fund Goes Down         Pension Bill Draws Protest         Deputies Association Hires High-Powered PR Exec         Finally, a Contract for NYPD Officers         Nebraska Corrections Officers Seek Out F.O.P.         Outrage Grows Over Pension Plans in Peril         Sanctuary Cities: Police vs. Mayor         Police Unions Seek to Overhaul Obama’s Reforms         Super Bowl Security         Look Hard at Your Pension Fund         Pension Mediation Talks Cease; Lawsuit Looms         How Much Would You Pay for Policing?         Hazardous Workplace         Officers Leaving in Droves         Technology, Police, and Privacy         Fake Guns Destroy Lives         War Against Unions Gaining Ground         Washington D.C. Police Union in Turmoil         Teamsters Face 20% Cut in Pension Benefits         Body Cam Screw-ups Lead to Mistrial         VIDEO: Body Cam Catches Shootout         Restraining Order for Black Lives Matter Leader         New Chief Has Fight On His Hands         Pension Panic Spreads         Carrots and Sticks         Another Agency May Fold         Community and Police Join in Prayer         VIDEO: We Are There For You!         Feds Seek Repeat of Disastrous Police Hiring Practices         VIDEO: Officer’s Gift of Kindness Keeps on Giving         Is Trump Going After Collective Bargaining Rights?         Police Union Not “App”y         Police Union Fights Back Against Budget Cuts         Police Union Reinstates Body Cam Program         Citizen Wants Officer Fired for FB Post         VIDEO: Use of Force Policy Fiasco         Attacks on Law Enforcement         VIDEO: Where Is the Outrage?         Millions May Lose Overtime Pay         Mayor Violates Officer’s Right to Due Process         VIDEO: Police Union Heals With Song         State Moves to Nix Benefits From Collective Bargaining         City, Officer Cleared in Wrongful Death Case         Trump Puts OT, Benefits On Chopping Block         VIDEO: A World Without Law Enforcement         VIDEO: Shake It Off         HUGE Refund for AZ Public-Safety Pensioners         Eloquent Goodbye         Cheerleader In Chief         The Trouble With Trauma         Shocking News About Local Gov Pension Funds         See You In Court!         One of the Good Guys         Chief Resigns After No-Confidence Vote         Zika Virus Hits Cops         Iowa Officers Ambushed         Policing the Police         For Real Community Policing, Let Officers Do Their Jobs        
By November 18, 2014 Read More →

Urgent request to our fellow officers

Two weeks ago, Craig Tiger, a 12-year veteran of the Phoenix PD who took his own life. He might still be with us today if the chief had found him help. Instead he was fired.

Two weeks ago, Craig Tiger, a 12-year veteran of the Phoenix PD, took his own life. He might still be with us today if the chief had found him help. Instead he was fired.

Below is the story of Officer Craig Tiger who was diagnosed with PTSD during treatment for alcohol abuse after he was arrested for DUI one year following an incident where he was forced to take the life of a suspect. After he was fired for the DUI arrest his ability to continue with needed psychological counseling for diagnosed PTSD was greatly diminished. After his termination, Craig continued to struggle with the demons of depression and nightmares that continued to plague him and he ultimately took his own life 14 months later.

 

A message from Ken Crane
Vice President, Phoenix Law Enforcement Association

Instead of weighing the situation based on the totality of the circumstances and seeing the DUI for what it was; a symptom of a much bigger problem, Phoenix Police Chief Daniel Garcia, knowing Craig had been medically diagnosed with PTSD, fired him. I urge you to read the story and watch the videos. We hope you will be sufficiently moved to send an email to the Phoenix officials listed at the end of this story to let them know your thoughts.

I realize it’s a long list and if you only have time to write to a few people the ones at the top of the list are the most important. It is our hope, with pressure applied from law enforcement people everywhere, that the city will develop a more humane and compassionate policy for people like Craig Tiger. If we had a better system in place, combined with a Chief that understands those situations are best dealt with from a perspective of compassion rather than discipline, he might be alive today.

On Monday, November 17 the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association and the Phoenix Police Sergeants and Lieutenants Association held a joint press conference calling for a vote of no confidence against Chief Daniel Garcia over a long list of transgressions that has decimated the morale of the Phoenix PD. The final straw was the Chief’s inept handling of the Craig Tiger incident.

VIDEO of press conference:
no_confidence

If your agency has developed a sensible and humane policy for dealing with officers who have job-related PTSD, we would appreciate hearing from you.

Ken Crane, Vice President
Phoenix Law Enforcement Assn.
email: kcrane@azplea.com

Patrick Tortorici, Vice President
Phoenix Police Sergeants and Lieutenant’s Assn.
email: ptortorici@hotmail.com


Abandoned by his agency,
a good cop takes his own life

In early November, another police officer committed suicide. He was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after he was forced to kill a man to save the lives of others. It’s a tragedy that didn’t need to happen. The officer and his association pleaded for help, but it all fell on deaf ears. Now another officer is dead by his own hand. It didn’t have to be this way.

On June 4, 2012 everything changed for Phoenix Police Officer Craig Tiger, a quiet 12-year veteran with an unblemished record whose fellow officers all say was a good cop.

It was a hot summer afternoon when the call went out that a man was acting wildly in a local park threatening people with a baseball bat, including a four-year-old.  Craig Tiger and his partner responded to the scene.

“We gave him numerous verbal commands to drop the baseball bat,” Tiger told reporters with CBS Channel 5 afterwards. “He didn’t comply. I actually back stepped a couple of times trying to give him even more of an opportunity to drop the baseball bat. He did not.”

It’s a situation law enforcement officers hope they never have to face even though they are trained to respond with lethal force when it does. Based on the suspect’s behavior and his refusal to comply with Craig and his partner’s demands to drop the bat, the officers made the split second decision that lethal force was their only option – there was only 12 to 15 feet separating the officers and the bat wielding man.. Both officers fired three shots at the same time and the suspect died at the scene.

“I went home that night to an empty house,” Tiger remembered. “It started immediately. I proceeded to self-medicate with alcohol. It started that night. That very night.”

Tiger, who would readily admit that he was no stranger to alcohol and a weekend drinker, began to self-medicate by drinking on a daily basis. He struggled with sleeplessness, nightmares, depression, and images of the event he could not purge from his brain.

His former wife, Rebecca Tiger, also a veteran Phoenix officer, said Craig was utterly devastated that he was forced to take a life.

“He would cry,” Rebecca said. “Craig would say it over and over again about the shooting. ‘It’s all I see, Becca. It’s all I see.’ He drank to drown the memories.”

On the one-year anniversary of the shooting, Craig was still struggling with nightmares, flashbacks, and depression. After several drinks he decided to drive to his family’s cabin in the woods where he planned to commit suicide. But on the way he was stopped by a county sheriff’s deputy who arrested him for DUI.

“We have a family cabin up north,” Craig told reporters after his arrest. “And I was going up there to kill myself. I had guns with me in the car. In hindsight, getting stopped by that deputy probably saved my life. I wouldn’t be here right now.”

After his arrest Tiger was ordered to attend a 30-day inpatient treatment program for alcohol abuse. That’s where doctors discovered he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Officer Tiger was not only facing criminal charges for the DUI arrest, but a Department disciplinary hearing for driving under the influence.

The hearing took place months later. Phoenix Chief Daniel Garcia met with Officer Tiger and Joe Clure, the president of the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association. During the hearing, Officer Tiger, who had 12 years of service with no prior discipline, poured his heart out to the Chief in an attempt to explain what he had been going through since the shooting in 2012.

Craig begged the chief not to fire him, as did PLEA’s Joe Clure. Clure told Chief Garcia that Craig had been diagnosed with PTSD and needed help. But their pleas fell on deaf ears. The Chief refused to see that Craig had been broken by the very job he was hired to perform. Rather than help this officer get treatment, Garcia chose to fire him from the Police Department.

Joe Clure, in his position as the president of the Association was furious. “I am pissed off,” Joe told reporters. Clure went on to lay the death of Tiger at Chief Garcia’s feet. He noted that the Chief opted to fire Craig rather than give him help and that is the reason he is not with us today.

Joe Clure reacts to Craig Tiger’s suicide. In some older news footage Craig Tiger speaks to a reporter out about the incident where he was forced to take a man’s life and the impact it had on him.

Craig’s former wife, Rebecca Tiger, is angry as well. “The Department had a responsibility to help him recover,” she said. “If he had been physically injured they would have helped him. “Instead the Chief fired him. Why wouldn’t they help him? He needed professional help to recover. Instead they threw him away. The loss of his job isolated him. He lost his identity.”


Watch this exclusive interview with Rebecca Tiger who challenged the Chief to come to her home and talk to their children.

“I would like to invite him into my home,” she said. “I want him to express his condolences to me and our children. Craig was a great man, a great officer and a great Daddy. I would like Daniel Garcia to explain to them why he decided he was not worth saving.” In some ways Officer Craig Tiger had the last word. Before he took his own life he left a series of notes to friends and loved ones. In every message he blamed Chief Garcia for his fate. In one letter he wrote, “See you on the other side Chief Garcia. You and the City of Phoenix failed me plain and simple.” We will not tolerate this failure of leadership

 

This is not the first time Chief Garcia has acted with a callous disregard for the well being of his officers.

This is not the first time Chief Garcia has acted with a callous disregard for the well being of his officers.

“We can not and will not tolerate this failure of leadership on the part of Chief Garcia and the Phoenix Police Dept., that expects so much of our men and women on the front lines, Joe Clure said. “When one of us needs help after suffering the aftermath of a shooting or the many other extreme situations our job constantly forces us into, we have every right to demand support and compassion from our agency. By firing Craig Tiger, Chief Garcia abandoned Craig Tiger and every other officer in the Phoenix Police Department and that is intolerable. Instead of care and compassion which is what Craig Tiger so desperately needed, the Chief’s actions exhibited nothing but cruelty.” A post on the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association’s website states in part that the decision by the Chief sent many messages: You’re no longer worthy to wear the badge.
 I no longer believe in you or trust you. 
You’re not worth saving.
 Whether you have been diagnosed with PTSD or not isn’t my problem. “This past August, a Phoenix sergeant was forced to take the life of a 50-year-old mentally ill woman who charged him along with other officers with a claw hammer,” Clure explained. “Instead of supporting his officers in the aftermath of this tragic event, Chief Garcia made apologies to the family and held a teary-eyed press conference where he announced that all his officers would be required to take ‘mental health training’ so incidents like this would not occur again.”

If you want to see Chief Garcia in action, watch this video. He refuses to answer any questions and is hostile to the reporter.

garcia_dodges

A demand for change

Together PLEA’s Joe Clure and Sean Mattson who serves as president of the Phoenix Police Sergeants and Lieutenants Association, sent a letter to every city official under both their signatures. It reads in part:

“We can no longer discard personnel who become mentally ill by performing a difficult and stressful job. A better level of care is owed to those who serve. We must do much better in assisting the men and women in law enforcement impacted by PTSD by providing the needed treatment to assist in the recovery process and aid in their future success.

The very real issue of PTSD in the ranks of the men and women who serve in law enforcement can no longer be ignored. We cannot continue business as usual by discarding police officers who are injured or broken by the job like yesterday’s trash.

This letter is to inform you that we are demanding change in the way that the City and Police Department treat those of us who are suffering with PTSD. We do a good job of treating our physically wounded and now it is time to step up and do a better job of treating our psychologically wounded.

We are proposing a working group backed by the city with police unions as the driving force incorporating the appropriate experts that would allow us to come up with a more realistic streamlined program to treat those diagnosed with PTSD or PTSD symptoms. Experts tell us that with proper care and treatment that most PTSD issues can be resolved allowing employees to return to workplace as productive employees.

Public safety is one of those professions plagued with the “Iron Man” syndrome. As the guardians of society who are always supposed to be there for everyone in their hour of need, there is an unspoken rule that we don’t break and can never show weakness.

For those who do suffer the debilitating effects that often come with the job, there is a very real fear of being stigmatized by peers, managers and the employer who, for whatever reason, view them as weak or no longer worthy of the profession. It is for this reason that many in this career field suffer in silence.

Not only can we do better, we must do better. We owe it to the men and women who daily put their lives on the line to protect society. We are confident you will agree that we can and should do much better on addressing this very important issue and anxiously await your response.”

Too all our brother and sisters out there, please help us honor the memory of Craig Tiger by emailing the following Phoenix officials. Let them know how you feel about the cruel treatment he suffered at the hands of his agency and the chief, Daniel Garcia.

Mayor Greg Stanton: mayor.stanton@phoenix.gov

City Council Members
Thelda Williams: council.district.1@phoenix.gov
Jim Waring, Vice Mayor: council.district.2@phoenix.gov
Bill Gates: council.district.3@phoenix.gov
Laura Pastor: council.district.4@phoenix.gov
Daniel Valenzuela: council.district.5@phoenix.gov
Sal DiCiccio: council.district.6@phoenix.gov
Michael Nowakowski: council.district.7@phoenix.gov
Kate Gallego:  council.district.8@phoenix.gov

Chief Daniel Garcia: Daniel.v.garcia@phoenix.gov
City Manager Ed Zuercher:  Ed.zuercher@phoenix.gov


Here are links to resources that might be helpful:

IACP – Preventing Law Enforcement Officer Suicide

IACP – Officer Suicide Report

Suicide Prevention Resource Center

Posted in: The Job

Comments are closed.