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Daily Bulletin
Five years ago, Rialto police Sgt. Carl Little found himself in the midst of an officer-involved shooting when a 65-year-old man pointed a gun at him and fired.
Little wasn't hit but the effect of being shot at stayed with him for some time.
"It took me off work for six months," he said.
"I had an angina attack the next day. I had some definitive stress. They ran me through the investigation and by 10 a.m. the next day, paramedics took me to Kaiser and I was there for three days."
Inland Valley police officers spoke out Friday in support of those who they say are pushed to use deadly force.
While the officers wouldn't comment specifically on the Claremont shooting of 18-year-old Irvin Landrum that occurred early Monday, they said similar scenarios in their opinion would justify shooting a suspect.
"We carry a badge and a gun and people think it's easy for us to shoot people," Little said. "It's not. The bottom line is, I'm concerned for my safety. I'm a human being."
Race of the suspect doesn't have anything to do with a shooting if a weapon is pulled on an officer, he said.
"If you come back with information that the suspect has been arrested prior for a concealed weapon, you have to check for weapons," he said. "If they once had a gun, there's a possibility they have a gun again. You have to check for weapons. It's an officer-safety issue."
"If they refuse to be patted down, you have to ask, 'If you are doing nothing wrong, then why do you mind?' " he said. "The suspect's actions would indicate to me if deadly force is going to be used against me or another person. Pulling a gun at an officer is considered threatening."
Little, who is black, said the "race card" is sometimes played unfairly. In Riverside, officers shot 19-year-old Tyisha Miller, who was black, 12 times as she waited for help in a locked car. She had a gun in her lap and made a motion to it when the officers approached the car, Riverside police said.
"We don't have all the facts," Little said. "The media doesn't have all the facts, and it's wholly too soon to make all these allegations."
Rebecca Valencia-Stincelli, a Sacramento behavioral scientist who has experience in counseling police officers after shootings, has worked for the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department as a field advocate, helping victims of crime.
"After a shooting, the officers replay it in their minds," she said. "They get emotionally drained just replaying it and replaying it. They need to talk about it with others because they begin to start questioning themselves even though they know what they did what they were supposed to do. Nine times out of 10, they reacted accordingly."
It's not uncommon for police to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.
"If the stress level after the shooting is high, and the officer can't process what happened, they can get PTSD," Valencia-Stincelli said. "If they get immediate support and counseling or talk to their beat partner, then they do much better."
During his 15-year career, Fontana police Lt. Chris Tronaas fired one shot at someone who threatened his life.
"The suspect leveled a shotgun," he said. "I jumped for cover, rolled, came up and fired one round at him."
Tronaas missed. The suspect drove off, but after a brief chase he was arrested.
"But looking into the barrel of a shotgun was an eye-opening experience," he said. "I didn't get checked at the time, but now it's mandatory to see a psychologist and talk to someone. Officers have to get out those feelings. Those pressures get to them."
Tronaas says some are too quick to judge officers and make race an issue following a shooting.
"I think we are in such a society where everyone wants to blame everything on someone else," he said. "A lot of people don't want to take responsibility for what they do. I don't think officers go out there with the intention saying, 'I'm going to find a black person and shoot them today.' We have a few knuckleheads out there, but we've come a long way from when I became a cop 15 years ago."
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