CHICKASHA – A $4,000 mental health services grant for the Police Department was accepted by the City Council recently.
Stacey Stephens, a licensed professional counselor whose practice is “predominantly with first responders,” provides her privatized services through Operation Round-Up.
Since 2020 the program has been funded for all police department employees and their immediate family members, Chickasha Police Chief Goebel Music said.
During the last seven years “our department has suffered and been involved with countless critical incidents,” Music wrote in a letter to Carrie Koesler, community outreach director with Oklahoma Electric Cooperative, whose foundation supports Operation Round-Up.
Incidents he cited included several suicides; several fentanyl-related overdose deaths; several murders, including one in which a 4-year-old child was killed and a woman had her heart cut out; and five officer-involved shootings, two of which resulted in the death of the assailant and one in 2017 in which three officers were shot and wounded during a gunbattle in which more than 200 rounds were fired.
“These are constant stressors from working shorthanded,” Music said.
For example, one officer retired last July after nine years with the department. He was “involved in several critical incidents since 2017,” Music said, declining to elaborate.
Each year Chickasha police respond to approximately 16,000 calls for service, Music informed Koesler. “While we are budgeted for 32 sworn positions, we currently have 12 full-time officers responding to calls.” One officer was injured during a foot chase of a felon and subsequently underwent knee surgery, and another officer was called up for military duty.
“This means each officer is responding to twice the normal number of calls, seeing more and experiencing more traumas than normal,” Music wrote.
He has hired six new police officers, all of whom are in “various stages of training.” Two of the recruits are set to attend the Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training academy in July.
Music told the council that Stephens “has probably saved at least five of our employees” since 2020. She reported conducting 70 mental health and wellness sessions last year and 13 this year as of early May.