For years, I experienced moral injury almost every day without understanding what it was. I didn’t know there was a name for what I was feeling. I only knew that something inside of me had changed after the critical incident. I was carrying something I couldn’t simply put down at the end of my shift. I thought about what happened. I questioned myself. I struggled with emotions I didn’t always understand, and I often wondered why I couldn’t just accept what had happened and move forward.
Today, I understand that much of what I was experiencing was moral injury directly connected to taking another person’s life in the line of duty.
I was involved in a critical incident inside a crowded Walmart store. An individual was armed with a hatchet, and I made the decision to use deadly force. That person died.
As a police officer with 15 years of experience, I had been trained for situations like this. I understood the responsibility that comes with carrying a firearm and the possibility that one day I might have to use it to protect myself or someone else. I knew, intellectually, that police officers sometimes must make split-second decisions involving life and death. But knowing that possibility in a classroom or during training is completely different from being the person who actually has to make that decision.
There is a difference between understanding that police officers sometimes use deadly force and being the person who takes another human being’s life.
I survived that day physically. I walked away from Walmart. I went back to work. I continued answering calls, responding to emergencies, responding to many more critical incidents, and helping other people through some of the worst moments of their lives. From the outside, I probably looked like I was moving forward.
Inside, I was trying to figure out how I was supposed to live with what had happened.
The incident itself lasted only moments, but for me, the experience didn’t end when the immediate threat was over. The physical danger ended that day, but the emotional and moral questions continued. I replayed things in my mind. I questioned myself. I wondered about the person who died and thought about their family and their young daughter, I thought about the circumstances and the decisions that had to be made in a matter of seconds. And sometimes, I thought about the fact that I was the person who pulled the trigger.
This is difficult for me to write even today.
I don’t say that because I believe I was wrong to protect myself or others. I knew why I made the decision I made. I knew what the circumstances were, and I knew I was responding to an immediate threat. I believed then, and I believe now, that I had to act.
But knowing that I made the right decision didn’t make the death meaningless. A human being still died.
I still had to live with the knowledge that my actions contributed to that person’s death. Those two truths can exist at the same time. I could believe that I had to act to protect myself and others while still feeling sadness, guilt, anger, confusion and grief over the fact that another person was dead.
For years, I didn’t understand that. For years people would ask me, “Have you forgiven yourself?” I didn’t understand what their question meant, but I do now.
Instead, I thought I was supposed to simply accept it and move on. I was a police officer. I was supposed to be strong. I was supposed to handle difficult things. I was supposed to be the person other people could depend on. So, I didn’t talk about what was happening inside of me. I suffered in silence.
Eventually, what I was carrying began affecting other parts of my life. I developed unhealthy ways of coping because I didn’t know how to process what I was feeling. Alcohol became one of my many poor coping mechanisms. I drank to escape feelings I didn’t know how to confront. There were times I drank and drove. There were times when my thoughts became extremely dark. At one point (at least a dozen times), while intoxicated, I put my duty weapon to my head.
Looking back now, I recognize that I wasn’t simply trying to forget one traumatic event. I was trying to escape myself. I was trying to escape the memories, the guilt, the shame, the questions and the emotional weight I had been carrying for years. Six years to be exact.
I didn’t understand that I needed to process what had happened. I thought I needed to be tougher. That belief kept me quiet.
In December 2021, during active-shooter training, I experienced a panic attack. That moment eventually led to a psychological assessment diagnosing me with Major Depressive Disorder, PTSD, Acute Stress with Dissociative Features and being unfit for duty. I was approved to take a 90 day leave of absence from work to address my mental health. For the first time, I began confronting things I had avoided for years.
I participated in Psychotherapy, EMDR, Biofeedback, ACT, and DBT. I began learning that what I had experienced wasn’t a personal or professional failure. My reactions weren’t evidence that I was weak. They were evidence that I was human. That realization changed the way I looked at my experience. I was terminated from that police department when they wouldn’t extend my 90 day leave of absence when it expired. I had been employed with that police department for about 14 years.
The critical incident changed me. Taking another person’s life, even when you believe it was necessary and justified, can challenge your sense of identity, morality and purpose. For years, I believed that because I was the one who survived, I shouldn’t be the one struggling. I was wrong.
Survivors can struggle. Police officers can struggle. People who make the right decision can still grieve. Someone can know they did what they had to do while still being deeply affected by what happened. That is one of the things I wish more people understood about moral injury.
Moral injury isn’t necessarily about believing you did something wrong. Sometimes it is about knowing you did what you had to do and still having to live with what happened.
For me, the moral injury was connected to the reality that another human being died because I used deadly force. That fact became part of my life whether I wanted it to or not. I couldn’t undo it. I couldn’t change it. I couldn’t bring that person back. All I could do was decide what I would do with what happened to me.
For years, I tried to bury it. Today, I talk about it. I talk about it because I know there are other police officers who have taken a life in the line of duty and may be struggling with emotions they don’t know how to explain. They may be asking themselves questions they are afraid to say out loud. They may feel guilt, shame, anger or grief. They may feel nothing at all and then feel guilty for not feeling something. They may tell everyone, “I’m fine.” I know because I was that officer.
My story isn’t about regretting protecting people. It is about recognizing the human cost of having to make an irreversible decision.
There is a tendency to look at an officer-involved shooting primarily through the question of whether the use of force was legally justified. That question is important. It has to be answered. But there is another question that doesn’t always get asked: “What happens to the officer after they take a life?” For me, the answer was complicated.
I went back to work. I kept serving. I kept putting on the uniform. I kept helping other people. And through all of it, I carried the memory of that day with me. Eventually, that weight became too heavy to carry alone.
Today, I don’t believe talking about moral injury dishonors the person who died. It doesn’t diminish the reason I used deadly force, and it doesn’t change the circumstances of that day. Instead, it acknowledges the humanity of the officer who survived.
I am now able to look back at the critical incident with a greater understanding of myself. I can recognize that I was placed in an extraordinarily difficult situation and made a decision in a moment when action was necessary. I can also acknowledge that the decision changed me.
For years, I experienced moral injury every day without knowing what it was. Now I have a name for it and having a name for it has helped me understand something important. I didn’t need to forget what happened. I needed to process it. I needed to talk about it. I needed to understand it. And, perhaps most importantly, I needed to forgive myself for being human.
Surviving a critical incident doesn’t mean you walk away from it unchanged. Sometimes the person who survives the incident is the person who continues carrying it long after everyone else has gone home. I know that because I am that person.
Today, I use that experience to help other officers understand something I didn’t understand for many years: You can do what you were trained and required to do. You can save lives. You can survive the incident. You can know that you made the right decision, and still need help living with what happened. There is no shame in that. There is humanity in it.