Officer Involved

I received a promotional viewing of this film in exchange for my honest opinion. The thoughts/ideas contained within this post are mine and may vary from those of others.

About Officer Involved-

Officer Involved is a thoughtful feature-length documentary that examines officers who have been involved in deadly force incidents during their tours of duty. Through first-person interviews and testimony, both police officers and leading experts share their experience and knowledge to show some of the factors that can go into how we view an officer-involved shooting and the dramatic impact that they can have on the men and women who serve in law enforcement.

What We Thought-

officer–involved–shooting. Noun. (plural officer–involved shootings) An incident in which a firearm was discharged during a situation attended by a constable, usually where the officer fired upon a threat or attack upon his person or that of another.

No one in law enforcement ever wants to “become involved” but often it happens in the blink of an eye. My family happened to become involved in the early spring of 2013. This is the first time I have ever blogged about it and while it is a tough subject, Patrick Shaver who created the Officer Involved Project and this film made it more realistic for me and made me realize this is a way more common occurrence than I was aware of. We knew people who had become involved over the course of their careers, but never in a million years did I expect as the wife of a Deputy Sheriff that I would EVER get the phone call that it had happened.

The same year that our family became involved, Patrick Shaver started this project. I spoke with him on behalf of my husband who was still pretty much in shock over the whole incident and was in counseling at that point weekly. We were dealing with a new diagnosis of PTSD as a result of the OIS (Officer Involved Shooting). He had not returned to work and we were new parents. Our lives had forever changed and not only was my husband having issues, but honestly so was I. It is a hard thing to handle when you learn something so traumatic has happened to a spouse. I didn’t know what to do for him, or how to even talk to him sometimes.

I don’t want to focus on our story as much as the stories of those that became a part of this film. I could relate to so many of them. 9 minutes into the film I found myself reliving the events of finding out about my husband’s OIS. It struck a nerve and I felt my eyes burning with tears.

The feelings that Officer Involved invoked in me were real, they were emotional but they were also reassuring that we are not alone in the law enforcement community and there are people like Patrick Shaver who do care about the things that happen to the officers out there. For a mere $19.99 you can witness first hand accounts of these real life officers and their stories.

Personally I want to thank Patrick for all he has done, for making this real life situation into something that is not taboo and not being a media sensationalist and only showing 1 side of something that is very very real to so many people.

Samantha

Samantha hails from Virginia and is a proud wife to a retired Deputy Sheriff and mother to two amazing little boys named Jack & William. A veteran product reviewer; Samantha has been reviewing products for 8 years and offers high quality product reviews with original photography.