Stay Strong: A Guide to Internal Affairs for Police Wives

What is Internal Affairs for Police

Internal Affairs is responsible for investigations of police officers when a supervisor, colleague, or community member believes that a police officer was not following protocol as they were trained or in general did something unethical according to community members. Depending on the size of your spouses’ department, the IAB, or Internal Affairs Bureau, can be an entire unit with a lot of resources. A friend of my husband’s believed that there was a police car following him home at night to observe his behavior during an internal affairs investigation.

Internal Affairs Investigation Process

Typically, your spouse will learn about an internal affairs investigation during his shift when he is informed by his supervisor. That is what has happened with my husband in the two critical incidents that I know about. I am going to be vulnerable and share that my husband was accused of inappropriate use of force during both circumstances. It was a very stressful time when he was accused of these things. During one of the times, he was in a specialized unit and the entire unit was disbanded. He was sent to regular patrol, which was not what caused the most amount of stress for us. My husband wanted to move on. His previous colleagues were very upset and wanted to get lawyers to fight the closure of the specialized unit and get their positions back. My husband did not want to join them. One thing that he did was ensure that he had a lawyer himself in case he needed to protect his job, which is something your spouse can and should do. In this case, Rick’s job was not threatened so he did not need the lawyer. The challenge was the fact that Rick did not want to fight it and his fellow officers did. That created tension. Ultimately, the best thing that happened was that Rick changed to work in a different division. Los Angeles is huge, so changing divisions was like a fresh start for him. If your spouse has the chance to do that, it was the best thing Rick could have done to prevent burnout.

Resources for Internal Affairs Investigations

• Seek legal help. Ask around to fellow officers that your spouse trusts to see if they know of a good lawyer to represent him if needed. We have known other officers close to my husband who were even temporarily fired and then got their job back by fighting the case in course with a lawyer who knows officers’ rights. It took time, even years, but it was worth it. Our friend who went through this went back to school during his time off the job and got his bachelor’s degree. He took full advantage of his time and made the best of it.

• Seek emotional/psychological help. Investigations can take a toll on the entire family. We wives might feel helpless like there isn’t much we can do. If you are feeling this way and see the emotional burden in your spouse, maybe seek marital therapy or coaching during this time.

• Take care of things about this house. Check out my police wife productivity blog for help. You are not helpless. If you are taking care of the cooking, cleaning, and children, you are truly helping give your spouse the time he needs to think and recover during this stressful time.

• Basic needs. Ensure you and your spouse are doing your best to sleep well, exercise, eat well, and drink enough water. It is the most stressful times that we need reminders to take care of ourselves. I love my at-home workouts to Sydney Cummings on YouTube, and Rick loves jiujitsu and CrossFit. Working out is like therapy to both of us.

I truly hope this blog lets you know that you’re not along going through this. I strongly believe my husband is a good person, a good cop, and even he had times when he went through an internal investigation.