No matter what a judge decides about charges Stephen Roach faces in the fatal shooting of Timothy Thomas, officers who shoot and kill face years of profound life changes.

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        They react in a wide variety of ways, experts say. Sleepless nights. Suicidal tendencies. Questions about whether they should've tried something else before firing. Nightmares. Questions about God.

        “Sometimes they can't get over the fact that they've taken a human life,” says Dr. Alexis Artwohl, a Portland, Ore. former police psychologist who has counseled hundreds of officers. “They make the decision that they just can't use deadly force again. They basically become disabled.”

        Although statistics are hard to come by, most officers who kill return to their departments, she says. Some return within two to four weeks of the shooting if they get enough counseling and support inside and outside their department. Some return to low-key jobs, she says. Still others need years of counseling.

        Officer Roach, 27, a four-year member of the Cincinnati Police Division, spent the past week in a Hamilton County courtroom defending himself for the April 7 fatal shooting of Mr. Thomas, 19. Mr. Thomas was unarmed. He was wanted on 14 misdemeanor charges and ran from officers.

        Officer Roach is the first Cincinnati officer to be criminally prosecuted for fatally shooting a suspect.

        “No one's ever been in (Roach's) position before,” says Chief Tom Streicher, who shot and killed a man in 1980 during a drug arrest.

        Closing arguments are set for Monday afternoon. If convicted, he could go to jail for nine months.
       

Most continue careers

        In Cincinnati, 22 police officers have been involved in 14 fatal shootings since 1995. All but two of the officers still are members of the police division:

Conway

        • Katy Conway physically couldn't return to work. She was severely injured in February 1998 when Daniel Williams got into her car in Over-the-Rhine and shot her in the abdomen. She returned fire and killed him. She later married and had a child.

        • Officer Kevin Crayon was dragged to his death a year ago after he fatally shot a 12-year-old boy in an attempt to stop the boy from driving down Colerain Avenue.

        A third, Officer Michael B. Miller II, initially quit after he and Officer Brent McCurley shot Michael Carpenter in March 1999. The officers said the man was backing his car up toward one of them. Officer Miller returned to work within a year. He now patrols parks. Officer McCurley has been promoted to sergeant.

        Some of the officers involved in shootings, reached last week, did not want to talk about them. As time has passed, most are now in different assignments.

        Officer Roach is among those who've kept their jobs. He's assigned to the impound lot, generally not considered a desirable assignment. He faces misdemeanor charges of negligent homicide and obstructing official business, so even if convicted, he would not necessarily be fired. Still, he could face administrative sanctions, up to and including termination.

        His life changed dramatically the second he pulled the trigger of his 9 mm semiautomatic service pistol and killed Mr. Thomas early that morning in an Over-the-Rhine alley. Soon after, his wife said, Officer Roach couldn't sleep. Threats forced them from their house. They moved in with relatives in another county.

        His family declined last week to talk about how he's doing now.

        His attorney, Merlyn Shiverdecker, hammered away throughout the trial at what it must be like to deal with not just killing someone, but also the ensuing protests, riots, allegations and media scrutiny.
       

Instant decision

Ron Washington, now chief deputy sheriff of Kenton County, was forced to shoot a man who pulled a gun during a traffic stop. (Patrick Reddy photo) | ZOOM |

        Ron Washington was out of the Kentucky police academy less than three months when he killed a man in October 1989.

        Officer Washington had pulled the man over for driving the wrong way down a Florence street. Putting the man through field-sobriety tests, he spotted something under his jacket. He put his hand on his weapon, but the man insisted it was only his back brace.

        The man turned away, reached into his jacket and started to swing around with a gun. The rookie fired three times.

        He was immediately put on paid leave. He met several times with a police psychologist. No trauma, no trouble sleeping. Just one question: What would God think?

        He went to Mother of God Church in Covington to talk to a priest he knew from growing up in the neighborhood. “I knew I was legally justified — the man drew a gun on me,” he says. “But I asked the priest, how does God look at this? I mean, is it OK?'”

        God understands, the priest told him.

        Still, Officer Washington needed veteran officers to help him deal with subsequent field-sobriety tests. He wondered if he could pull the trigger again.

        “Here you are, in a job where you're supposed to help people,” he says. “And you question whether or not you're a good guy anymore.”

        He's now a colonel with the Kenton County Sheriff's Office.

A test of stability

       “The bad thing about this is you don't know if you can handle it until you have to,” says Wayne Ford, a retired California police officer and author whose own “fatal situation” prompted him to study police stress.

        Cleared of any wrongdoing when he shot a 47-year-old accountant who aimed a shotgun at him, Mr. Ford says he didn't suffer many side effects — mostly because his actions weren't questioned like Officer Roach's have been.

        An officer with Mr. Ford at the domestic disturbance that night in 1972 wasn't so unaffected. A Mormon, he left the force weeks later to run an ice cream shop.

        Mr. Ford received no counseling, just this question from his sergeant: You OK?

        Now, Cincinnati policy calls for officers immediately to go on leave, with pay. They're sent to a psychologist who specializes in police stress. They stay off work until the psychologist thinks they're ready to return. It's always a week at least, sometimes longer.

        They're often switched to other positions. After Officer Tom Haas fatally shot Rickey Moore on July 27 in Millvale in his second gun battle in 17 days, he left third-shift patrol work in District 3. He now teaches about firearms at the training academy.

        Officer Haas and his wife, Denise, feel lucky that Officer Haas' actions didn't land him in a courtroom. In both his shootings, the suspects fired.

        Sgt. McCurley's shooting was examined — by his department, the county prosecutor, the city's Office of Municipal Investigations, the Citizens Police Review Panel and the U.S. Department of Justice. He was reprimanded and sent for more training.

        “But it's never really over,” says his wife, Leslie. “Every time there's another shooting, there's his face on TV again, and they're talking about him like he is this tough, non-feeling guy, which he's not.

        “We thought ours was bad,” she says. “But now we look at what the Roaches are going through. And we know that could happen to anybody.”

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