{"id":1951,"date":"2012-07-10T13:59:31","date_gmt":"2012-07-10T17:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/?p=1951"},"modified":"2012-07-11T09:48:49","modified_gmt":"2012-07-11T13:48:49","slug":"death-notification-delivery-tips-for-law-enforcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/?p=1951","title":{"rendered":"Death Notification Delivery Tips for Law Enforcement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/front-door.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-2025\" title=\"front-door\" src=\"http:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/front-door-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/front-door-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/front-door.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>I have had the sad duty of delivering quite a few death notifications in my career.\u00a0 It is one of the more difficult parts of our job from an emotional standpoint.\u00a0 For me, the worst part of the notification has to be in the moments as you approach the house, or apartment, or room where the unsuspecting family members are.\u00a0 They have no idea you are about to change their lives in a very significant way&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Knock, knock.<\/p>\n<p>Yes?<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m Officer Smith and this is Chaplain Jones.\u00a0 May we come in?<\/p>\n<p>Why, yes&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Please have a seat, ma\u2019am.\u00a0 I am sorry to tell you your son, John, was killed in a car crash tonight.<\/p>\n<p>(mother\u2019s reaction ensues)<\/p>\n<p>He was driving to a friend\u2019s house from work.\u00a0 His car was hit by another vehicle at Union Avenue and State Street.\u00a0 He died at the scene.<\/p>\n<p>Are you sure it was, John?<\/p>\n<p>Yes, ma\u2019am, it was John\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Basic Principles of Death Notification:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In      Person<\/li>\n<li>In      Time<\/li>\n<li>In      Pairs<\/li>\n<li>In      Plain Language<\/li>\n<li>With      Compassion<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Best Practices:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In a      timely fashion<\/li>\n<li>With      certainty<\/li>\n<li>Go.\u00a0 Do NOT Call.<\/li>\n<li>Don\u2019t      use euphemisms; do use \u201cdead,\u201d \u201ckilled,\u201d etc\u2026<\/li>\n<li>Never      notify a child<!--more--><\/li>\n<li>Never      use a child or family member as a translator<\/li>\n<li>Be      direct, simple, and honest<\/li>\n<li>Provide      written information when possible<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>People\u2019s reactions to the death of a family member can be very unpredictable.\u00a0 Always take a partner or department chaplain.\u00a0 In <em>Counseling Crime Victims<\/em>, author L. Miller identified five types of family reactions when faced with the trauma of a death notification. They are:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The Contemptuous Family &#8211; They cope with adversity by getting      upset, berating and blaming each other and denying the existence of      problems.<\/li>\n<li>The Brittle Family &#8211; Members are reluctant to depend on one another      for support and understanding.<\/li>\n<li>The Hierarchical Family &#8211; This family functions with a sense of      internal unity and purpose but with little flexibility in roles and      responsibilities.<\/li>\n<li>The Enduring Family &#8211; This family relies on faith, typically,      religious faith to deal with tragedy.<\/li>\n<li>The Functional Family &#8211; When faced with trauma, this family      supports and bolsters more severely affected family members while working      harmoniously to afford support and caring to one another.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>I have literally watched multiple arriving family members fall to the sidewalk one after another after another at a death notification scene.\u00a0 At another notification, when I told an elderly woman her grown son had been stabbed to death in a bar fight, she calmly made us popcorn and coffee and went on to tell me what a waste of a life her son had been.\u00a0 We watched Wheel of Fortune.\u00a0 I left when I was sure her reaction was genuine.<\/p>\n<p>When receiving an assist call from another jurisdiction for a death notification, it is important to obtain a general statement of how the death occurred.\u00a0 If it is not relayed in a teletype, call the investigating officer at that agency and get at least a brief accounting of how the person died.\u00a0 This way you are able to give the family basic information in person, before referring them to the agency contact.<\/p>\n<p>If you must deliver a death notification related to a law enforcement action, know the point at which your presence is only escalating the situation.\u00a0 Give the message, but do not try to speculate about the incident, mitigate the police response, or blame the victim\/suspect for the death.<\/p>\n<p>As a detective, the hardest notifications for me were in child death cases. \u00a0My best advice is to steel yourself to be professional and keep your own emotions in check.\u00a0 If you are investigating the suspicious death of a child, you must not let their parental grieving interfere with your objectivity as an investigator.\u00a0 I have found compassion and suspicion are not mutually exclusive.<\/p>\n<p>Death notifications are not easy.\u00a0 Delivering the message properly and with respect can help to ease everyone\u2019s burden.<\/p>\n<p>Randall<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have had the sad duty of delivering quite a few death notifications in my career.\u00a0 It is one of the more difficult parts of our job from an emotional standpoint.\u00a0 For me, the worst part of the notification has to be in the moments as you approach the house, or apartment, or room where the unsuspecting family members are.\u00a0 They have no idea you are about to change their lives in a very significant way&#8230; Knock, knock. Yes? I\u2019m Officer Smith and this is Chaplain Jones.\u00a0 May we come in? Why, yes&#8211; Please have a seat, ma\u2019am.\u00a0 I am sorry to tell you your son, John, was killed in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/?p=1951\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[399,398],"class_list":["post-1951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-street","tag-delivery-of-death-notification","tag-police-death-notification"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p28xkp-vt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1951"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2049,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1951\/revisions\/2049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}