Windsor's police chief says his officers are coping with a recent fatal shooting.
Chief Al Frederick says officers have plenty of resources available to help them deal with a downtown shooting on March 21 that left a Windsor man dead.
The chief says a variety of people affected by the incident got together earlier in the week for a meeting to discuss what happened and identify any emotional needs.
"We had a tremendously successful debriefing a day or so ago," says Frederick. "All of the officers who were working that day, the communications staff like the 911 personnel, they were all invited."
With the incident currently being investigated by the Ontario Special Investigations Unit (SIU), Frederick is unable to provide specific details of the probe. However, the chief says the debriefing not only laid out the logistics of what happened but provided support on a personal level.
"It was more or less to offer support to one another, and to provide information, just from one person to the next," says Frederick. "I think it went off very, very well, and the officers are responding better than I expected, to be quite frank."
Frederick says some of that support comes from within the department and some outside of it. The police service says psychologists are made available to personnel on an as-needed basis, but the chief points out that a lot of his officers provide a sympathetic ear to colleagues.
"It's a large network of officers who are interested in the well-being of others. Other officers know of their existence and lean on them," says Frederick.
The SIU has confirmed that 33-year-old Matthew Mahoney was shot by two Windsor police officers during an incident outside the McDonald's restaurant on Wyandotte St. E and Goyeau on the morning of March 21. Mahoney died shortly after in hospital.
Family members say Mahoney had struggled for years with mental illness.
The investigation is ongoing.
