Fourth-generation law enforcement officer Jamie Heath has seen a lot of changes in his profession, not all of them for the better, since his days as a military police officer in the Marine Corps.
“It is not the same as it was 20-something years ago when I started [at the Collegedale Police Department]. It’s not the same as when my great-grandfather started in 1925,” says the self-proclaimed “hometown boy” who is now the department’s assistant chief of police. “It is a completely different mindset and a completely different generation when you’re asking about what officers need.
“It is a huge thing to carry when you are out there doing your best to serve a public [and] some out there really, really want to do harm to us – not just us, but our loved ones. When they are already carrying that idea of responsibility with them and they have a public that seems to denigrate them, insult them, it is a lot and it really affects morale.”
The department’s once-lagging chaplain program, which Chief Jack Sapp vowed to reinvent when he came on board in early 2021, aims to address these issues and more, by ministering to the department’s two dozen officers as well as members of the community. The initiative lies at the core of a larger planned wellness program that will, in the future, include financial courses along with physical and mental health components.
Unofficially launched when the city incorporated and opened its own police department in 1968, the spiritually based chaplain program languished for years with no staffed positions, relying instead on sporadic visits from local pastors.
Attempts to formalize it two decades ago were promising, but without concrete policies and goals, it again fell short of its goals. “It was built on good ideas and good intentions, and a lot of officers got really close to those chaplains,” Heath recalls. “But it kind of waned a little bit.”
By the time Sapp took over the police department two years ago, Heath says, “We were coming out of a dark area because we had been just inundated with some lawsuits from some former officers … Public perception was not really high with us, so it was imperative, not only for us to be able to minister to the burdens that the officers were carrying, because they were carrying a lot. But at the same time, we wanted to make sure that we were ministering to our community. We needed to reassure and minister to a public that wasn’t quite sure [of us].
“So we started trying to breathe new life into [the chaplain program]. It’s really just kind of started to blossom and grow even past what we had envisioned in the beginning. … It’s really taken off.”
Growing the program
With the program gaining new energy, more professionals have stepped up to participate. Some are ordained ministers. Others are accredited counselors and psychologists. “Clearly, we’re a government agency, so we can’t advertise for a specific religion,” Heath points out. “We have to be able to minister, not just in the religious sense of the word but to those that are not religious, those that are Christians, those that are Muslims, those that are atheist, all shapes and sizes.”
Currently, the College Police Department works with five chaplains: Mary Gangl, lead chaplain; Rev. Lou Parsons, the only original chaplain from 20 years ago; Clark Taylor, co-founder of the Chattanooga Institute for Faith and Work; Crystal Whitten, a former professor at Southern Adventist University; and Mark Matlock, a former reserve officer with the Collegedale Police Department.
They are all volunteers. “Every one of these individuals is doing this because they have a calling to do it,” Heath says. “That’s no small thing. They are taking their responsibility 100% on themselves because they care that much about the mission.”
In the past, he adds, department officials have talked about creating a paid position. “But we’re a government agency, so we will cross that bridge when we’re able to. We’re just not there yet.”
Despite their availability, the chaplains have their work cut out for them when it comes to getting troubled officers to discuss their problems and feelings.
“Cops are funny,” Heath says. “It’s hard to get a cop to trust you because everybody’s trying to pull the wool over an officer’s eyes or they’re not being 100% honest. A lot of officers are a little bit skeptical. They’re just not going to automatically start spilling their guts. Sometimes it takes months and sometimes a year or more for an officer to finally feel comfortable enough to open themselves up to a chaplain.”
Seeing more than a badge
In January, the Collegedale chaplain team received training at the Sevierville Police Department to become certified specifically in law enforcement through the International Conference of Police Chaplains. The workshops covered a gamut of issues, from ethics and stress management to suicide, officer death and injury, and sensitivity and diversity.
Such ongoing education is part of the department’s broader community outreach goals. “A lot of people think that chaplains just handle death notifications,” Heath says. “And while, yes, that is a very sad and sometimes morbid part of the job, they do so much more.”
The chaplains also deliver donations for community members who have fallen on hard times, sit with families in hospital waiting rooms when a loved one is injured or facing other dire medical issues, and orchestrate services for those who are homeless.
“Their saying is that they provide a ‘ministry of presence,’” Heath says. “It’s something as simple as somebody standing there with their hand on a shoulder. It’s something as simple as providing something for that grieving family member to lean against, somebody to gain strength from just from the fact of them being there. Granted, people have to want to be helped in order for these chaplains to be able to do what they do. But when they are allowed to, when they are asked for help, they come in there like gangbusters.”
The chaplain program is also becoming more proactive, Heath notes. “We’re trying to find more areas where we can allow that to happen, allow all that to flourish and grow.”
Chaplains, of course, don’t take the place of law enforcement officers but are part of a comprehensive community policing strategy designed to build trusting relationships with local residents. “The chaplains are just another added measure,” Heath says. “A lot of times the chaplains can get farther than we can because a lot of times people just see the badge. They don’t see the human behind the badge. But the chaplains have a softer image to engage with.”
Keeping officers psychologically healthy plays a critical role in their ability to handle tough challenges, Heath says. “One of the things that we teach our young officers when they come on the road is: You’ve got to realize that not only are you probably meeting somebody on the worst day of their life, but you are creating an impression. Every other officer that they interact with for the rest of their life is framed under the context you’re providing that day.
“When you have these men and women putting on the badge, putting on the uniform and going out there in public, they are carrying that mantle with them.”