SANTA MARIA - It's been a year like no other for the Santa Maria Police Department. Five officers who've been on paid leave after their involvement in a string of recent deadly shootings are returning to duty.
"It's a big issue for us to lose that many bodies when we are already down numbers anyway", says SMPD Lt. Dan Ast, "at that point we were down 14-15 percent of the staffing for the city so to bring five officers back its huge."
Among those returning to duty is Officer Matthew Kline.
It was Kline who fired his weapon on his best friend on the force, Albert Covarrubas Jr., during a scuffle with fellow officers while on duty back in January.
An investigation revealed Covarrubias was resisting arrest by fellow officers on charges of having sex with a 17-year-old girl when he pulled out his gun and opened fire.
Kline returned what proved to be fatal rounds at Covarrubias in a situation that took only seconds to unfold. Kline was best man at Covarrubias's wedding.
"Its a big decision especially when a life is taken, its traumatic", Lt. Ast says, "sometimes the best thing for healing is getting back to your group, the guys that you work with, sitting home sometimes can be a bad thing, sitting home you think you did something wrong when you didn't. you followed the policies and procedures and you had to protect yourself and other people."
Santa Maria psychologist Ole von Frausing-Borch, who has provided therapy to law enforcement officers involved in deadly shootings, says getting officers back to work is a positive development.
"If in fact in the officer-involved shooting a life was taken, they are going to be a little scared about how its going to affect them and whether or not they are going to feel comfortable about pulling that weapon out again", von Frausing-Borch says, "so they have to have a good psychological evaluation, ongoing therapy is a good thing to do, but getting back to a supportive environment and get them doing their job again is good for their overall mental health."
