The Conversation We’re Not Having: Trauma, PTSD, and the Cost of Ignoring the Nervous System

A woman is dead.

An ICE agent pulled the trigger.

Protests erupted.

Defenses hardened.

Sides formed.

And yet one of the most obvious—and necessary—questions is almost entirely absent from the public conversation: What role does trauma play in moments like this?

Not as an excuse. Not as a legal shield. Not as a political talking point. But as a known risk factor—one we understand far better than we are willing to admit.

Trauma Is Not a Moral Verdict—It’s a Physiological Reality

Trauma is not weakness. It is not a character flaw. It is not ideology. Trauma is what happens to the human nervous system when it has been overwhelmed by threat.

Neuroscience has been clear for decades: under acute stress, the brain does not function normally. When perceived danger spikes, the amygdala—the brain’s threat detection center—becomes dominant, while the prefrontal cortex, responsible for reasoning, impulse control, and proportional judgment, becomes less active (LeDoux, 1996; Arnsten, 2009). Time perception narrows, threat sensitivity increases, and reflexive responses override reflective decision-making. This is not speculation. It is well-documented neurobiology.

Which raises a question we rarely ask publicly: If we know trauma predictably narrows judgment under stress, why do we continue to deploy people with significant prior exposure to violence into high-risk situations without rigorous evaluation or restriction?

A Relevant Piece of Context

Public reporting has confirmed that the agent involved in the shooting, Jonathan Ross, was previously involved in a serious incident earlier this year in Bloomington, Minnesota, where he was dragged behind a fleeing vehicle during an enforcement operation and sustained injuries. That fact has been referenced publicly by government officials as part of the broader context surrounding the case.

What is not known is what psychological impact, if any, that experience had on Ross. There has been no public confirmation that he has PTSD or any trauma-related diagnosis, and such public assumptions should be handled with care.

To best serve Ross, other officers and the community-at-large, we must ask these harder questions.

Trauma research consistently shows that severe life-threatening experiences—especially those involving loss of control, bodily danger, and proximity to death—can increase future threat sensitivity in similar contexts. When a person who has previously been injured in a vehicle-related incident later finds themselves in another high-stress encounter involving a vehicle, it is reasonable—not accusatory, but responsible—to ask whether heightened physiological reactivity could be a factor worth examining.

That question does not excuse behavior. It asks whether risk was predictable and whether safeguards were sufficient.

Explanation Is Not Exoneration

One reason PTSD is avoided in public discourse is fear. There is a concern that naming trauma will excuse violence, minimize victims, shift blame, or weaken accountability. But this is a false choice.

Explaining how something happened is not the same as justifying that it happened. High-risk professions routinely analyze human limits. In aviation, medicine, and the military, fatigue, stress, cognitive load, and prior exposure are studied precisely because they increase the likelihood of catastrophic error (Reason, 2000). These analyses do not soften responsibility; they reduce preventable harm.

In civilian law enforcement, however, public debate often collapses into a single binary question: Was the shooting justified or unjustified? That question matters, but it is incomplete. It tells us nothing about predictability, nothing about preventability, and nothing about institutional responsibility. Those omissions carry real consequences.

Trauma Compounds—It Doesn’t Reset

When an agent or officer has previously been injured in a violent encounter, experienced perceived mortal danger, or returned repeatedly to similar operational contexts, future encounters are not neurologically neutral. The nervous system retains memory independently of conscious recall (van der Kolk, 2014).

Trauma fuses the present with the past. Certain cues—vehicles, resistance, sudden movement—become conditioned threat signals. In high-stress moments, the body reacts before the mind can fully assess context. As trauma researchers have long noted, the brain may respond as if the past danger is happening again (Perry, 2006).

This does not remove responsibility. It raises the stakes. Because when institutions understand this reality and still proceed without safeguards, the failure is no longer merely individual—it is systemic.

Why Trauma Is Missing From the Public Frame

So why is PTSD barely mentioned? Because trauma-informed analysis destabilizes power.

It exposes human limits in cultures built on control and certainty. Trauma acknowledges vulnerability, and institutions often fear that vulnerability undermines authority. It also complicates legal narratives. Trauma does not fit cleanly into adversarial frameworks or headline-ready binaries.

Most uncomfortably, trauma language humanizes everyone involved. It reminds us that victims were human, agents are human, and systems are human-designed—and therefore fallible. In moments of grief and outrage, humanizing can feel like betrayal. But refusing to humanize does not strengthen justice. It only increases the likelihood of repetition.

Why I’m Raising This Question

I do not approach this as a distant observer. My work in trauma studies and my service as a police chaplain—where I am certified in Critical Incident Management—place me regularly alongside officers, victims, and families in the aftermath of crisis. I have sat in hospital rooms, living rooms, and briefing rooms where the nervous system is overwhelmed and words come slowly.

That experience has convinced me of two realities at the same time: trauma profoundly shapes human behavior, and responsibility still matters. Holding those truths together is not weakness. It is wisdom.

The Missing Category: Trauma-Informed Accountability

Here is the conversation we actually need: If trauma degrades judgment under stress, then institutions that ignore trauma share responsibility when judgment fails.

Trauma-informed accountability does not lower standards—it raises them. It asks whether psychological evaluations followed prior violent incidents. It examines whether duty restrictions were considered or applied. It evaluates whether trauma screening was part of fitness-for-duty assessments. It questions whether tactics were designed to reduce predictable triggers or whether de-escalation was structurally possible rather than merely encouraged.

These are not soft questions. They are serious ones. And evidence from both military and civilian trauma research suggests they reduce harm (Hoge et al., 2004; Papazoglou & Andersen, 2014).

A Pastoral Observation: Fear Is Dangerous Power

From a spiritual perspective, this moment reveals an old truth: power combined with unhealed fear is always dangerous.

Scripture consistently warns that fear distorts judgment, accelerates violence, and turns neighbors into threats. Trauma is fear that has lost language—it is carried in the body. When unaddressed trauma is paired with authority and lethal force, it demands sober attention.

This is not anti-law-enforcement. As I’ve said throughout, I am pro–law enforcement. I would not serve this population as a chaplain if I were not.

The officers and first responders I know carry heavy burdens, often unseen, and they deserve both honor and honest care. If anything, my hope is that conversations like this will encourage more courage—not just in the field, but in the quieter work of seeking support, asking for help, and tending to their own well-being. That kind of strength protects officers, families, and communities alike.

What Trauma-Informed Reform Would Actually Look Like

If we were serious—not reactive, not ideological—trauma-informed reform would include mandatory psychological evaluations after violent incidents, clear role restrictions tied to exposure history, and independent trauma-informed use-of-force reviews. It would involve public language that distinguishes explanation from excuse, alongside support for victims’ families and rigorous psychological review of involved agents.

None of this weakens justice. It strengthens it. Because justice that refuses to engage reality is not justice—it is theater.

The Cost of Silence

When we refuse to talk about trauma, we guarantee recurrence. We protect institutions instead of people. We force future victims to pay the price of our denial.

Silence does not honor the dead. It prepares the ground for the next tragedy.

If we truly care about life, dignity, and justice, we must be brave enough to tell the whole truth—even when it unsettles our preferred narratives.

References (light, non-technical)

• Arnsten, A. F. T. (2009). Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function. Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

• LeDoux, J. (1996). The Emotional Brain. Simon & Schuster.

• Perry, B. D. (2006). Applying principles of neurodevelopment to clinical work with maltreated and traumatized children.

• Reason, J. (2000). Human error: models and management. BMJ.

• van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score. Viking.

• Papazoglou, K., & Andersen, J. P. (2014). A guide to utilizing police training as a tool to promote resilience and improve health outcomes among police officers. Traumatology.

• Hoge, C. W., et al. (2004). Combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, mental health problems, and barriers to care. New England Journal of Medicine.