NEW ORLEANS - Like many other New Orleanians nearly a year after Hurricane
Katrina, John McCusker was experiencing the overwhelming stress of rebuilding
his life.
McCusker, a photographer who was part of The Times-Picayune's 2006 Pulitzer
Prize-winning staff, was seen driving wildly through the city Tuesday,
attracting the attention of police.
He eventually was arrested, but not before he was subdued with a Taser and an
officer fired twice at his vehicle. During the melee, he begged police to kill
him. One officer suffered minor injuries.
James Arey, commander of the police department's SWAT negotiating team, said
he can understand why McCusker seemingly snapped.
"There are all these things you're trying to deal with in your own life, not
enough insurance, family problems, your health problems," said Arey, who already
knew McCusker. "And then day in and day out, we get to see the wreckage of our
city and people's lives. It's not easy to handle."
Stress is keeping law enforcement officers in New Orleans and neighboring
Jefferson Parish busy these days, as they answer many more calls than before the
storm for domestic abuse, drunkenness and fights. Involuntary commitments to
mental hospitals are up from last year, and suicides in Orleans Parish have
tripled since Katrina.
What's more, psychologists say the city's mental health environment is likely
to get worse as the anniversary of the Aug. 29 storm approaches, sparking
post-traumatic trauma in those who suffered losses.
McCusker remained in the city during the storm and continued to document the
unprecedented destruction, except for a leave of absence this summer while
dealing with the loss of his house and other personal problems.
On Tuesday, it seems, the pressure of post-Katrina life finally got to him.
McCusker, a Times-Picayune photographer for about 20 years, was booked with
aggravated battery and aggravated flight from an officer, both felonies, Arey
said Thursday. He said McCusker was in a psychiatric hospital.
"He's a great guy, a great photographer and we're all pulling for him," said
newspaper managing editor Peter Kovacs.
McCusker is mentioned in a feature on the city's travails in the current
issue of American Journalism Review, saying he went back to work June 20 after a
monthlong leave.
During the leave, the article says, McCusker spent much of his time sleeping
off exhaustion and attending therapy sessions three times a week. He told the
magazine he'd essentially become nonfunctional.
"You have to understand the depth of the horror that the city was," McCusker
says in the article. "Tens of thousands of people on the freeways stranded. The
children begging for food and water. The looting at the Wal-Mart. It was of
biblical proportions."
This marks an especially dangerous time for residents in areas still largely
destroyed by Katrina, said Dr. Jessica Henderson Daniel, director of training
and psychology at Children's Hospital in Boston.
Daniel, in New Orleans for a convention of the American Psychological
Association, said the storm's anniversary will spark new feelings of loss and
more emotional and physical stress.
"Sometimes the initial feelings of loss re-emerge, and sometimes they
re-emerge with even greater strength than they had originally, Daniel said.
A key to survival, Daniel says, is to have a strategy to cope with the
feelings.
"It's important for people to anticipate a reaction and know that it's normal
and they're not alone in their feelings," she said.
Dr. Jeffrey Rouse, the deputy New Orleans coroner who handles psychiatric
cases, estimates the annual suicide rate was less than nine per 100,000
residents before the storm. It's since increased to more than 26 per 100,000, he
said.
Experts blame an epidemic of depression and post-traumatic stress that
crosses all socio-economic lines.
Along with the general stress, there are more people with chronic mental
illness not getting medication in the area now, Arey said. There's also far less
professional help for them.
The city's crisis intervention unit at Charity Hospital, the primary center
for such emergency treatment before the storm has been closed since Katrina.
That limits the options for police after they pick up someone in need of
psychological help.
"There's almost no psychiatric services in Orleans Parish now," Arey said.
