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Is it too easy to enter law enforcement?

Van Zandt:  Why someone as young asTyler  Peterson would have already completed a police tactical school is another one of many questions that need answering.  Today most larger law enforcement agencies require their applicants to be college graduates, something that not only says they have the academic skills needed to be a police officer, but an additional few years in life to develop the needed maturity for the job. 

Crandon, Wisconsin, population 2,000, is like many communities before it, a stunned community in a state of confused mourning. No one could have suspected this past Saturday night that this sleepy hunting and outdoor recreation community would soon witness a senseless blood bath that would challenge a city 100 times its size.

It was homecoming weekend and students and graduates from the local high school were doing what all teenagers do on a Saturday night, trying to find something to do. The parking lot of a small bank was a local gathering point; a place where all teenager knew they could hook up with friends and share their time with like-minded others. One person looking for a little friendship that evening was 20-year-old Tyler Peterson, a graduate of the local high school and now a full-time deputy sheriff. He was sworn in, and given his badge, uniform and gun just eight months before.  Not only was now he a deputy sheriff, but he had also been hired by the small town’s police department as a part-time police officer. He also still found time, according to friends, to take courses at a local college.

These same friends have indicated that he recently completed a law enforcement SWAT-like course, and was a member of the local law enforcement tactical team, evidenced by the AR-15 assault rifle issued to him by the sheriff’s department, a weapon, along with his semi-automatic pistol, that he proudly showed to others.  It would be these weapons that would account for the death of he and 6 of his friends in the proceeding 24 hours. Now a stunned community plans the requisite funerals asks why.

What we do know about that fateful evening is that Peterson eventually wound up at the home of his longtime, but former girlfriend, herself a recent high school graduate.  Evidently a number of local students and friends, ages 14-20, went to Jordanne Murray’s home for pizza and a movie, a slow night by some standards, but something the local teens saw as a fun night together. It was fun until Murray’s ex-boy friend showed up. Some are suggesting he was trying to get back together with Jordanne. 

Reconciliation, however, was not to be that night. Peterson argued with Murray and it got ugly. Some teens called Peterson “a worthless pig.”  Whether they meant “pig,” as in his actions were crude, or “pig” as a negative term used over the years against police officers, the words apparently cut him deep. According to some in the small town, Peterson was picked on in high school-- and he graduated only two years ago.  Whether his being picked on included name calling, we don’t know. What we do know is that he left the small party only to return with his newly-issued assault rifle. Now, perhaps, it was payback time and he was in charge.

Normally I’m quick to affix blame and responsibility on the shooter in any homicide, especially a mass murder where only the shooter had a gun.  In this case, however, grieving parents and town residents will need to consider what actually set Peterson off, and why, at his age, he was under so much pressure.

Profiling Peterson
He was working two gun-carrying jobs while still attending college. Another burning question is how, at his age, he became a law enforcement officer in the first place. I’ve discussed this last aspect on MSNBC TV, and I’ve already received a slew of e-mails from current and former police officers indicating they had joined their respective forces at age 18 or 19, and were never mass murderers. They were, in fact, very good officers.

 
This I do not debate, but when it becomes universally known that he was never required to undergo a battery of psychological tests to determining his suitability and maturity for police work, this before ever searing him in and giving him multiple guns, I’m forced to question the liability of any department conveying this level of responsibility on one so young without any measure of his emotional capability to carry out the job.  Had a background investigation and a psychological exam determined that he had been picked on while in high school, one logical question (“Why do you want to be a law enforcement officer?”) might have helped to explore his motive to have authority over others.

I remember administering psychological exams to FBI Agents who wanted to be members of our tactical (SWAT) teams.  There was an interesting curve there, one of strong-minded risk takers that had to be looked at carefully to insure that such applicants didn’t want to join SWAT for the wrong reasons.  Why someone as young as Peterson would have already completed a police tactical school is another one of many questions that need answering.

A higher standard for law enforcement officers?
Today, most larger law enforcement agencies require their applicants to be college graduates, something that not only says they have the academic skills needed to be a police officer, but add an additional few years to develop the needed maturity for the job. 

There are those, however, who slip through the cracks; who become police officers because they want to have power over others.  As an FBI Agent for 25 years, I arrested many individuals who told me they could have been a good cop; in fact they had considered it.  I also remember a former big city police chief who said “the only problem with recruiting police officers was that we had to take them from the human race.” 

Obviously by this he meant that police officers, like the rest of us, carry emotional baggage unrelated to the job. Some can carry the weight better than others. 

There is— and should be— a higher standard for law enforcement officers. Whether one is an FBI Agent, state trooper, deputy sheriff, local police officer or an unarmed security guard, we as society expect more from them. Sometimes they let us down. 

Last moments of Peterson's life
By some reports, after using his AR-15 to fire at least 30 rounds into his victims, Peterson later found his way to the home of a friend where he confessed his crime and indicated his sorrow for the murder and mayhem he committed. These family friends were able to coax him into surrendering his rifle, but while calling 911 for help, Peterson kept his department issue pistol tucked away in his waistband. 

He would leave this residence, speak to his mother, who told him she loved him, no matter what he had done, and then return to the same house to eat. Residents called 911 over 20 times, to no obvious avail. Peterson then took a 45-minute nap in his pickup truck, only to be awakened by the local district attorney who unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate Peterson’s surrender. 

Witnesses then state that at about 2 p.m., Peterson, still armed, got out of his trunk and walked off toward the nearby woods. Logic dictates that he must have known he was surrounded by dozens of officers and the local SWAT team (probably men and women he had trained with). Now he was the target, the subject, the killer. He had only two choices: surrender or die. 

Witnesses then heard a volley of rounds being fired, what was believed to be an exchange of gunfire between Peterson and his former friends and co-workers.  Peterson then joined the ranks of the needless deaths that day in a small town called Crandon.

Search for answers
Peterson may have been challenged with his own identity.  He was as young as some he killed that warm fall night, young men and women that should have been eating pizza and planning the next phase of their lives. Was Peterson a kid at heart like most of his victims? Or a cop with so many responsibilities carried by one so young, one with other challenges that finally proved to be too much for him to carry? 

So many questions to be answered but the answers really won’t count.  The answers won’t bring his former girlfriend Jordanne back, just as the answers won’t be good enough for the friends and family of 18-year-old seniors Katrina and Leanna, or for those who knew 20-year-old Bradley -- a friend of Tyler’s who like Peterson, wanted to enter law enforcement. There was also Aaron, who graduated with Tyler, and 14-year-old freshman Lindsey. 19-year-old Charlie was the only shooting victim to survive that terrible night. 

And to those who rightfully say men and women go to war at 18, or 19, or 20, or that good cops can still be young cops; I’ll agree.  But something when horribly wrong late Saturday night, something that should have been prevented. 

Clint Van Zandt is a former FBI Agent, behavioral profiler and hostage negotiator as well as an MSNBC Analyst. His web site www.LiveSecure.org provides readers with security related information.