COLUMBUS, Neb. — Police officers and 911 radio dispatchers are trained to be an even-tempered presence in emergency situations, but the stresses of the job can also take an emotional toll.
That's the premise behind the Columbus Police Department's revival of the Chaplain Corps, a collection of local pastors who offer a sounding board for officers, dispatchers, crime victims or others involved in emergency or family situations.
"There are a lot of stresses in law enforcement . sometimes people need help coping with stressful issues in this line of work," said Sgt. Douglas Molczyk, the department's liaison with the Columbus Ministerial Association's pastor corps.
The corps, made up of seven representatives from local churches and the Columbus Rescue Mission, marked its one-year anniversary this month. The group had been dormant for about a decade.
Each of the seven people making up the corps spends a week at a time being on-call for officers or dispatchers. The on-call person can show up at the scene of an emergency or tap a minister of a specific denomination to respond to a crisis.
"We have a list of every minister in town," Molczyk said. "We can contact a member of the clergy of any religious affiliation in town."
Police officers often encounter people at the worst times in their lives, such as at the scene of a domestic disturbance or a fatal accident involving a drunken driver.
"We do ride-alongs with officers, and we (go into the police station) and sit down with dispatchers ... getting to know about their lives and their families' lives," said Dusty Sprague, associate pastor at First United Methodist Church.
"We help them through the process of dealing with the (emotional) toll it takes," said Sprague, remembering a case of a 911 dispatcher calmly talking a caller through CPR techniques while trying to save a baby's life, only to have the child die before first responders reached the scene.
The pastors are available to assist members of law enforcement and their spouses and families with any stressful situation that may arise, Sprague said.
Pastors are also available to accompany officers attending to duties such as informing a person of a death in the family. A pastor can offer spiritual care and after-care in those situations.
The corps and police officers, with contributions from churches and partnering with the rescue mission, also work together to offer a hand-up to members of the public who might be down on their luck.
Sometimes people are in situations in which they might need a lifeline, $20 or $30 to help out with food, gasoline to get to work or temporary housing, Molczyk said.
The police sergeant said the person asking for assistance must go to the police station, meet with a chaplain and undergo a background check for outstanding warrants. The person's name is also run through a database to make sure he or she has not been helped previously.
Molczyk said the chaplain corps is in the process of making its services available to the Columbus Fire Department and the Platte County Sheriff's Office.
"The corps has been a great thing to bring back," Molczyk said. "We'd like to expand the corps roster of pastors."
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