Page 8 - TPA Journal Sept Oct 2021

wellness; and healthy spiritual and personal relationships. If you are “off balance” on any
of the items above you can start with the 4 – 4 – 4 breathing daily and throughout the day
and start building your wellness. I am no fitness expert. I would like you to try it on your
smart watch applications and you will see how this breathing exercise can put you into an
effective combat performance heart rate in under 40 seconds. Let’s move on to the
“love/pumpernickel part.” This is a hard reset on the human side of us.

Allow me close with a practical example.

[dispatch] E-Tone ALERT “9402!”

[officer] “9402 go ahead”

[dispatch] “9402, Respond Code 3 to a report of a shooting with multiple hits at 555 N.
Main St. Caller on 9-1-1 is a 12-year-old boy who says that he just got home from school
and found his daddy and 5-year-old brother both shot inside the home. Unknown if the

shooter is still inside the home and the caller says both victims are not breathing.”

[officer] “9402 enroute Code 3.”

This is when I want everyone responding to that scene to do their “4 – 4 – 4 breathing”
and have some positive self-talk. Say “pumpernickel” and remind yourself that you have a
professional responsibility to handle the call but you are human.

This is when I want dispatchers to check on officers’ status that might sound something
like,

[dispatch] “9402, what’s your status?” and when they hear, [officer] “9402, dispatch we
are secure. The actor is not at the scene. 4 – 4 – 4 / Pumpernickel dispatch” and for them
to hear, [dispatch] “9402, dispatch copies, 4 – 4 – 4 / pumpernickel.”

I am not sure if your agency will allow you to do this but I want you to acknowledge

that it takes love to do the things that we do and the goal is to live the best life we can.

After all, we have seen some of the worst things in life and we do too much good
collectively to allow our brothers and sisters to break from the inside out.

4 www.texaspoliceassociation.com • (512) 458-3140 Texas Police Journal