Study: Law officers struggle after war

March 11, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

MADISON, Wis.

Many law-enforcement officers called up to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan are finding it difficult to readjust to their jobs once home, bringing back heightened survival instincts that may make them quicker to use force and showing less patience toward the people they serve.

In interviews with The Associated Press and in dozens of anecdotes compiled in a survey by the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance, officers described feeling compelled to use tactics they employed in war zones after they returned to work in the U.S.

One officer said he felt compelled to fire his gun in the air to disperse an unruly crowd in California. Others said they felt wary about being flanked when working crowd control. And others said after seeing the hardships ordinary Afghans and Iraqis lived with, it’s hard to care about complaints over pet droppings.

The report, which was issued late last year, warns that the blurring of the line between combat and confrontations with criminal suspects at home may result in “inappropriate decisions and actions — particularly in the use of ... force. This similarity ... could result in injury or death to an innocent civilian.”

In two high-profile cases, officers blamed their overzealous use of force on complications from their military service.

Wayne Williamson, an Austin, Texas, police officer who served 18 months in Iraq, was fired in 2008 after he opened fire on a fleeing assault suspect in a crowded parking lot. A dispatcher had reported that the suspect was carrying a knife, but Williamson said he didn’t see a weapon when he fired.

None of the rounds hit their mark, but one struck a minivan with two children inside. They were not injured.

Williamson told investigators he had been having trouble readjusting to some aspects of civilian life and that he had trouble differentiating between Iraq and Austin during the confrontation.

“In Iraq, if a bad buy gets away, he could come back and blow you up or blow up someone who works with you,” Williamson told the AP. “I’m not the same person who left.”

Laura Zimmerman, a psychologist who contributed to the study, said the irritability some respondents reported feeling with citizens back home stems from a sense that the stakes have been lowered. Officers have gone from helping build nations to writing speeding tickets, she said.