The Providence Police Department's nine-member team will be available to counsel officers one-on-one following Detective James Allen's shooting death.

09:06 AM EDT on Wednesday, April 20, 2005

BY ELIZABETH GUDRAIS
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- As news of police Detective James L. Allen's violent death spread early Sunday, the Police Department's nine-member Peer Support Unit mobilized.

Clarence W. Gough Jr., a unit member who's also an investigator in the special-victims unit, was at his own 50th birthday party at Lombardi's 1025 Club in Johnston when he checked his cell phone. He had 21 missed calls.

Gough called in, found out what happened, and went home to return the messages. He was on the phone from midnight until 5:30 a.m. He estimates he made and received 55 phone calls. "Sometimes on two phones," he said yesterday.

Kenneth Cohen, a Peer Support Unit member who's a lieutenant in the patrol division, spent the night at Rhode Island Hospital, where police officers and Allen's family gathered. Esteban Carpio, the man suspected of killing Allen, was also at the hospital. "Emotions were extremely high," Cohen said.

Gough, Cohen and the Peer Support Unit's seven other members will be available to talk to officers one-on-one. As for group sessions, though, officers from other departments -- West Warwick, Warwick, Cranston, Coventry -- will handle those.

"This is too close," said Michael Wheeler, a sergeant in the patrol division and another Peer Support Unit member.

The department has called in outside officers before, most recently in 2000, when Providence police Sgt. Cornel Young Jr. was shot to death outside a diner by fellow officers who mistook him for a suspect.

Sitting in the lobby of police headquarters yesterday, the peer support officers said Police Chief Dean M. Esserman is cutting officers slack with their schedules.

"You have to be ready to work when you come here," Gough said.

"And if you're not ready. . ." Cohen began.

Gough finished his sentence. ". . . then it's better that you stay home."

"The smart person knows when they have reached a bridge they can't cross," he said.

The peer support sessions, on the other hand, are mandatory for the department's nearly 500 officers, and for civilian employees and dispatchers. On Saturday, the department will host a "crisis management briefing" for officers' families. "An incident of this magnitude affects everybody," Cohen said.

The sessions have jargonistic names such as "debriefings" and "defusings," but their purpose, according to Cohen, is simple: "letting people vent."

The officers running the sessions are required to report to authorities if someone talks about harming himself or harming a child. Other than that, participants and leaders are sworn to confidentiality. "If that confidentiality were ever breached, then our unit is useless," Wheeler said.

The sessions are held in small groups of 6 to 10 people, with the same format for officers who were directly involved in the incident and those who weren't.

The average session runs between 20 and 45 minutes, but for officers who were directly involved, "that session may go a lot longer," Cohen says.

This is the first so-called "critical incident" for the Peer Support Unit's three new members, who joined the all-volunteer group three weeks ago.

Members are chosen based on the level of trust and respect other officers have for them. "It's important for the other officers to trust the people on our team," Wheeler says.

Most large police departments have a peer support unit, Cohen said. But in the old days, he said, "it was called the stress unit, which had a negative connotation."

He said a change in terminology reflects the easing of a stigma against seeking help for emotional trauma.

"In the past, in the old days, you didn't ask anybody for help. You were expected to suck it up and come to work, because that was your job," he said.

Today, officers are much more likely to seek help for emotional trauma, the way they would for a physical injury. And they do it at all hours of the day and night. That's where Cohen, Gough, Wheeler and the rest of the team comes in. They coordinate efforts when something major happens, but they're always available.

"We get calls all the time," Wheeler said. "We'll get calls at 2:30 in the morning saying, 'Hey, can we talk for a little bit?' "