MANKATO — Bill Lewinski, whose job is to help prepare police officers for life-threatening situations, said a shooting of a police officer brings the obvious stress to a department, but it also brings support.
"In general, most people tend to take law enforcement for granted, and when people respond to something like this, the officers realize how much they're appreciated. The community recognizes how dangerous the job can be, and the officers realize they have an important job."
Lewinski teaches at Minnesota State University, which has a highly respected four-year law enforcement degree program.
Mankato police officer Robert Sadusky was shot in the face in a standoff with a man in Amboy last week. He lost his right eye and is recovering in a Rochester hospital. Another officer, from St. Peter, was also shot but his helmet prevented serious injury.
Lewinski did not want to talk about any specifics of the shooting, but discussed general reactions to a police shooting and what he sees as a lack of training in many state programs to prepare officers for such situations.
"We've never had an officer shot or die in the line of duty in Mankato. This is a reminder that we have to come to terms with it."
How an officer deals with being shot or with a fellow officer being shot varies, he said. "Some officers deny it, some accept it and just move on, and some decide to do more training or get other help to deal with it."
He said there had been debate over how well officers coped with high stress situations, but enough research now shows they handle it well.
"The research is very, very clear. In the immediate aftermath of a stress situation, most officers do very well. They're able to cope and move on quite successfully."
He said the outpouring of community support he's seen since the Amboy incident helps. "It's important to get a lot of department and community support."
He says the MSU program includes stress classes.
"We prepare officers for the reality of stress and performance issues. From the nickeland- dime stress on the streets to life-threatening stress."
Lewinski said Minnesota does very well in providing officers all manner of training once they are officers. But he believes preparatory training for officers is lacking in many places.
"We live in a state that thinks we have the best officers because of pre-training, but our pre-training services fall far behind many other states.
"There is no profession that has as much life-and-death power, or freedom power, over citizens as police do, but as far as training in this state we're farther behind than other professions."
Lewinski said the shooting in Amboy, in which a tactical team was responding to a person barricaded in a home, is unusual for Minnesota.
"There are officers shot in raids every year in the United States, but it's unusual for Minnesota."
He said FBI research shows most officers are killed when they're responding to more routine situations, such as traffic stops, or in cases such as the immediate aftermath of bank robberies or armed robberies.
In the end, Lewinski said, the nature of law enforcement makes it dangerous.
"No matter how well you prepare, the unpredictable happens. When that happens in a football game you just lose the game. In law enforcement you can lose your life.
"We can never control everything."
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