When it's a child, it's always a shock

JEFF JARDINE
jjardine@modbee.com

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In the police academies, prospective officers are taught how to handle many crises.

In the fire academies, firefighter hopefuls learn how to administer CPR and other first-aid techniques beyond putting out the flames.

In medical school, doctors are taught how to save lives, aided by nurses who learn their craft in college programs.

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In flight school, helicopter pilots are taught to land their craft in tight places.

They learn proven methods of reacting to a specific emergency. They're taught to protect themselves, physically and legally, as they do their jobs.

But nothing -- no drills, no protocol, no textbooks -- can possibly prepare even the most seasoned professional for the kind of mind-numbing tragedy that happened Saturday night in a rural area west of Turlock.

What could prepare you to see a father beating his 2-year-old son to death, stomping him during some sort of delusional fit?

What could prepare the Modesto police officer who, flown to the scene in a sheriff's helicopter, bounded out when it landed and shot the father to death, though too late to save the child?

Or how about the Mountain View firefighter who used CPR in an effort to revive a child battered so badly that it will take DNA testing to confirm his identity?

Or even the folks at Emanuel Medical Center's emergency room, trained to treat the worst and bloodiest of injuries? It's always different when the victim is a child, they'll tell you.

"There's really no training for the psychological impact to deal with the things they deal with," said Phil Trompetter, a Modesto psychologist who spent 30 years working with law enforcement agencies in Stanislaus County, providing counseling services after virtually every major critical incident during that time. "There's no training for the emotions that will come afterward. Emotions that accompany a situation where a child is killed or badly injured are worse (than other officer-involved shootings)."

For three decades, Trompetter conducted these so-called critical incident debriefings. Now they're handled by Jocelyn Roland, who took over his practice when he retired from the law enforcement side of his work.

Psychologists explain the kinds of feelings responders might experience, the emotional and physical changes that can happen when the adrenalin rush of the moment wears off and the magnitude of what occurred begins to set in.

There have been some hideous, egregious crimes involving children in this area.

In 1989, 3-year-old Jerome Martin was tortured to death by his mother's lover. In 1997, 8-year-old disabled twins Breanne and Brittany Walker were found starving to death in their Ceres home. Their mother, Tanya Walker, pleaded "no contest with a protest of innocence" to two counts of attempted murder; she was put on probation. Breanne died in 1999. In 2006, a couple was accused of beating their 3-year-old daughter nearly to death, a case that is now in the court system.

Saturday's tragedy will rank among them for its horrific nature.

"Every kid I ever saw on the autopsy table looked like my son or daughter," said Modesto police Sgt. Jon Buehler, a 29-year veteran who spent years as a homicide investigator. "Not in their faces, but in their bodies."

Any case can remind him of another he's worked.

"Stuff pops into my mind frequently from all those things that have happened over the years," Buehler said.

He's prepared himself by training, training and training some more, knowing there are things he can't control.