The Rifle Police Department has three officers who recently joined  the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office Peer Support Team to help their fellow first responders in their need. 

Officers Justin Macklin, Wyatt Bornholdt and Kallie McCain joined the Peer Support Team recently to provide mental and emotional support to people with mutual experiences. 

“Peer support can be for anything,” McCain said. “It can be work related, like the impacts of an active shooter or infant death or it can be for something personal. It’s for all first responders, all badges, all uniforms and scrubs for people who see very similar calls, if not the same one.”

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McCain said it was a great way to bridge all the gaps and get help for everyone for every step of the way. 

“When I was in the police academy, we were talking about peer support and how important it is to keep up with physical and mental stressors,” McCain said. “The job can impact every part of your life and I wanted to help my peers.”

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McCain has had her fair share of experiences on the job at Rifle PD in her three years there. 

“I had a lot of people reaching out, I felt blessed to have that support,” McCain said. “Chief (Funston) was incredible, she reached out to me to help and offer resources.”

McCain wanted to help her fellow first responders much like how she felt supported by her superiors. 

“I just want them to know that they have someone in their corner fighting for them and they have support,” McCain said. 

Officers can get a call within 30 minutes of their shift, McCain said, and it can be traumatic. 

“Afterward, you have to complete the rest of your shift and you’re jumping from call to call and you have no time to process it,” McCain said. “For me, I put it in a box, I put that incident away into a box because there’s still people that need my help.”

McCain will speak to her family and friends about the incidents she goes through and is grateful to have that support. She also recognizes when her fellow officers are going through the same thing. 

“We have our own ways to show we’re struggling,” McCain said. “I spend more time with my coworkers than at home, so that’s our indicator that something is happening.”

A March 2024 report that looked into law enforcement and psychological distress determined that law enforcement officers see a 54% higher risk to suicide compared to that of the general public.

“We go through a 40 hour peer support academy, we get a bunch of booklets and things like that on how to respond to first responder traumas,” McCain said. “It can be a different trauma, because you’re breaking down every single thing you did, everything you’re hearing on the radio, how you could’ve helped people more.”

Some decisions, McCain said, must be made instantly based on training.

“I did what I had to based on my training experience,” she said. “We have a split second to make these decisions and if we had a lot more time, that would be awesome.”

McCain said she considers feedback on how she could have handled situations differently for future incidents.

“We always go to, ‘how could I have done this better?'” she said. “We’re very supported by our community and when we get those suggestions, we try to do it to better the city.”

McCain was involved in community service work when she was younger and wanted to make positive changes in her community. 

“I think I’ve had an effect, interacting with the community members in negative and positive calls,” she said. “Sometimes it just takes sitting and talking with them to help.”

McCain believes that being in a community like Rifle also helps effect the positive changes she tries to make.

“Our leadership supports us as people and officers and they’re big advocates for us to improve ourselves,” she said. “Being able to know our leadership personally makes a big difference.”

The idea of being on the peer support team to help with critical incident debriefs and help officers in their needs is something McCain likes to see really happening. 

“Years and years ago, there was the thinking that you just sucked it up and moved on,” she said. “It’s being recognized and we’re able to get ahead of it. I think it will change people’s lives.”

Not taking traumatic work can help in numerous other first responders as well, in ways some might not realize. 

“Chief (Funston) has been a big advocate for us to help out the fire department, dispatch, hospital and the coroner’s office,” McCain said. “Sometimes dispatch is helping talk someone through CPR or the coroner receives an individual from a traumatic crime scene or the hospital gets a patient in a bad car crash.”

McCain knows that first responders always beat themselves up when they can’t save a life, but it helps when people come up and thank her for trying to help.  

“I think of it as, we deal with the smallest percentage and see the worst things so they can see the best things,” McCain said.