Society & Politics

Did you know that the ICE officer who shot the woman in Minneapolis had his own problems?

The ICE officer's name is Jonathan Ross. He shot and killed the woman in Minneapolis several days ago. Jonathan was previously a service member in Iraq, where he reportedly operated a machine gun. Details of the service are not available as yet, but probably will become available. More recently, last summer, Jonathan was chasing a car with an alleged illegal immigrant in it and stuck his hand and arm into the back window of the vehicle and was dragged for quite a distance and sustained multiple injuries, none of which were apparently terribly serious but probably pretty painful. I imagine the incident itself was terrifying.

I diagnose and treat veterans of the armed forces for PTSD and other conditions. This is a remarkably refractory illness to almost every form of treatment that we have available. Many imaging studies have revealed that exposure to severe stress probably causes hormonal responses in the body, which then cause injury to the brain and specific brain structures that control both memory and emotion. As a result, people with PTSD have a wide variety of symptoms including impaired judgment, difficulty with anger control, and a profound feeling that even relatively harmless events are life-threatening to them.

In my opinion, People with PTSD should not be in law enforcement because they are likely to be re-exposed to the same kinds of events that caused their difficulties in the first place. Sometimes these events are merely symbolic, and sometimes they are almost exact duplicates, such as combat veterans who then become police officers and end up having people pointing guns at them - again. These kinds of exposures are very likely to lead to frightened, aggressive, dangerous responses on their part.

I don't know if Jonathan Ross has PTSD or not, but I am certainly suspicious of it given his history in Iraq and his more recent history of being dragged by a car.

Updates
6 mo
If Jonathan does have PTSD and the military and/or ICE were aware of it, allowing him to work as an ICE officer represents gross negligence on the part of ICE and the government as a whole. It is extremely dangerous for individuals with PTSD to work in law enforcement until they have fully recovered, which can take ten years or more with proper treatment. Without treatment, the risks can be significant and there may be no recovery.

I view Jonathan as a victim of Donald Trump and Donald Trump's
Updates
6 mo
policies.
Did you know that the ICE officer who shot the woman in Minneapolis had his own problems?
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