After a fatal shooting this month of a psychologist inside an El Paso Veterans Affairs clinic by an Iraq war veteran, the VA’s police force is renewing its long-running calls for more staff, better training and increased resources.
“No one with the VA police I know was surprised to hear about the shooting because safety and security have been a systemic problem, which has gone unaddressed for years,” said John Glidwell, former police chief at the Cheyenne VA medical center. “These are the same issues we have been screaming for help with the entire 10½ years I have been with the VA police.”
The problem has grown even more urgent in recent months, police activists say, after veterans grew increasingly frustrated with the VA when it came to light that the agency was lying about patient wait times. It was a scandal that cost the VA’s then-secretary, Eric Shinseki, his job and led to promises of widespread reform.
“We are dealing with a population of veterans that suffer from assorted mental health issues, including (post-traumatic stress disorder),” Glidwell said in an e-mail. “Sometimes they have drug and alcohol problems, and when they feel that the VA is ignoring them, not answering the phone, failing to return calls for assistance or there are long wait times, they get more and more disgruntled. The VA is ripe for a mass killing, but no one is listening to us.”
Media reports show there has been a string of shootings and violent incidents in VA medical centers across the country, inside the nation’s largest health care system with more than 1,700 hospitals, clinics and medical centers.
Some of the violence has been committed by employees. Other times, they are carried out by veterans, who VA police point out are trained in weapons and tactics, increasing the risk.
Days after the El Paso shooting, VA Secretary Robert McDonald vowed to “give employees whatever they need.”
A VA spokesperson said in a statement late Friday that “matters of workplace safety are of the utmost importance” and that the agency will announce in “the coming weeks” a new policy for dealing with “active shooters.”
But police say they have been sounding the alarm for more than a decade. “Why has it taken this long to protect lives?” said Glidwell.
Glidwell was removed from his duties after posting what he calls “critical expressions about leadership shirking duties and harming public trust” on his private Facebook page. He has been on paid leave since Sept. 25.
