Denial can kill twice, police officers learn By Jennifer Veneklasen Published in Amarillo Globe-News, July 12, 2002 Denial kills you twice. This is the message that Lt. Col. Dave Grossman brought to police officers and juvenile probation officers from around the region during a lecture Thursday in Amarillo. Grossman teaches prevention.

Lt. Col. Grossman speaking to local law enforcement officers. photo by Robert Mulherin

He encourages people to open their eyes to the problems around them, namely in respect to preventing youth violence. Awareness is his solution to stopping violence and killing among youths.

"Refuse to give kids the permission to proceed with violence," Grossman told the law enforcement officers in his audience.

Denial, he said, is dangerous.

Grossman offers an example:

A boy hands in an essay to his English teacher about poisoning his entire family. The teacher gives the boy an A+ because it was a well-written essay. The boy later kills his whole family by poisoning them. Denial on the teacher's part gave the boy permission to proceed, he said.

Grossman then asks his audience a question:

What if the same boy had written an essay about having sex with his entire family? Would the teacher have done something?

"Of course the teacher would have done something," he said.

Grossman said he gives this example to show where our societal values lay and to show how far-reaching denial can be.

Grossman calls the lecture he gives more than 200 times a year, the"bulletproof mind." The purpose of the lecture is to educate people about violence and show them how to prevent it, Grossman said.

"The most important thing is to set aside our denial so we can prevent violence from happening," he said.

Besides helping law enforcement officers to see problems, Grossman also spent the day offering solutions to violence.

Sylvia Esqueda, a juvenile probation officer from Hutchinson County, was among the officers at the lecture.

Esqueda called the lecture a revelation.

"I thought what we (juvenile officers) were doing was sufficient," Esqueda said. "But now I see that it's not."

Grossman is the author of "On Killing" and "Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill."