February 15, 2003

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Linda Simmons Hight
Media Relations Director
Church of Scientology International
6331 Hollywood Blvd. Suite 1200
Los Angeles, CA 90028-6329
Phone (323) 960-3500
Fax (323) 960-3508
E-mail mediarelationsdir@scientology.net

ONE CITIZEN’S ANSWER TO THE 9/11 WAKEUP CALL: “BECOME A POLICE CHAPLAIN”

(LAGUNA BEACH, CA) This particular calling from the heavens came with a terrifying start. Just before the New Year 1980 struck, so did a stray celebratory bullet, falling out of the sky and hitting Gayle Thorsen and landing her in the hospital, the bullet lodged in her abdomen.

Months of physical and emotional agony followed. Initially her hopes rode on surgery to remove the bullet and end the pain. The outcome instead was the surgeon’s decision that it was safer to leave the bullet rather than remove it.

Even more devastating to Thorsen, who attended California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks and was a successful business professional, was this nagging anxiety: How could a random bullet, fired by an unknown reveler, have found its way to her? The wound she could recover from; the fear of being around guns and bullets seemed insurmountable. The drive to avoid potentially dangerous situations became obsessive, she recalls.

Today, as she hurries out the door to jump in a squad car and ride on patrol with a Laguna Beach Police Department officer, she laughs at the irony of her long-ago mindset.

A wife and mother of daughters 11 and 14, Thorsen is one of hundreds of volunteer chaplains across the nation whose job is to help law enforcement personnel deal with the spiritual and emotional upheaval that is often part of the police beat. Thorsen was told early in her training that a chaplain can be at risk. Her instructor warned that chaplains have been shot in the line of duty. She cringed. But at the same time, she decided it was time to leave her fears behind.

September 11, 2001, defined that no-turning-back moment, said Thorsen, a member of the Church of Scientology. On that day, her church issued a “wake-up call” to all Scientologists to do more to help others and create a better world. “I knew I had to answer that call for myself and my children — and for our police force, who do so much to keep us safe that most people never hear about,” she says.

“Answering the call,” for Thorsen, started with the Volunteer Minister training program at the Church of Scientology in Tustin, where she and her family are active members.

On this course, she learned of the 19 different means by which a Volunteer Minister can help others in all aspects of life and living — to assist them through spiritual travail, to overcome communication breakdowns, develop study skills, aid them in coming off drugs and alcohol, build relationships, resolve conflicts, and more.

Upon completion of her Volunteer Minister training, she applied for and was accepted in the Laguna Beach Police Department’s chaplain training program. One year later she was in training with 19 other civilians in “Citizens’ Academy, Class #7,” of which she was elected president. Those who graduated were sworn in on January 6, 2003.

“Conventional wisdom says that ‘just showing up and listening’ is sometimes the best help you can give,” says Thorsen. And she does her fair share and more of “just listening” to the men and women who need to download their emotions, she says.

But Thorsen lends more than a listening ear, especially in times of extreme stress such as when an officer is wounded in the line of duty. In the Scientology Volunteer Minister training program she learned to give “assists,” simple and powerful procedures that help a person more rapidly overcome physical or emotional trauma. Described by Thorsen as “spiritual first aid”, these are the procedures used by 800 Scientologists to help fire fighters and rescue workers at Ground Zero after the tragic events of 9/11/01.

When a young Laguna police officer was shot during an attempted robbery last fall, Thorsen was called in to help. With other chaplains ministering to the wounded officer — whose bullet-proof vest stopped the bullet but not the pain of impact and the trauma — and his family at the hospital, Thorsen rushed to the station to comfort the officers suffering a wound that, for many, is indescribable. These were the backup officers who, in defending themselves at the scene of the crime, opened fire on the suspect. He later died.

These things happen all the time on TV cop shows and in the movies, says Thorsen, but in real life they can cause significant emotional distress, and the police officers felt it deeply. Thorsen left behind forever her own personal demons that night.

“Helping another is the best ‘therapy’ in the world,” says Thorsen. “I had no time to indulge my own fears — I had too many other people to help.”

Thorsen gave “assists” that night, including one called “Tell Me What Happened.” This assist, one of 130 developed by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, encourages a person to recount a traumatic incident as many times as needed to feel in the present and relieved of the sometimes agonizing emotions of a past experience. She then went to the hospital intensive care unit and assisted the 24-year-old wounded officer and his family.

Thorsen also prays with officers who ask her to.

For Gayle Thorsen, her January 6 swearing-in as a Laguna Beach Police Department chaplain was “only the beginning” of her answer to the 9/11 wakeup call. She more recently enrolled in the Orange County Sheriff’s Department professional chaplain training program. There, she has made strong friendships with both the senior chaplain and the senior training chaplain in Orange County, whose mission it is to enlist citizen involvement in the chaplain program.

Thorsen also values the friendships she has made with police officers and chaplains of many faiths and their families. “As we came to know each other through training together, we saw how little we knew about each other and our respective religions,” says Thorsen. “Now we have a deep respect for one another that we must teach to others.”

Thorsen has big goals for herself for the remainder of this year and into the future. In addition to caring for her family, coaching girls soccer, volunteering at her daughters’ schools, various business projects, and continuing her volunteer chaplaincy, she is carrying the message to volunteers across the nation that supporting law enforcement is of great benefit to the police and vital for the community. She has already introduced the Volunteer Minister program to other police departments, and she encourages people of all faiths to actively contribute as chaplains.

“Everyone needs to answer their own wakeup call,” says Thorsen. “The world needs our help, and it starts with every one of us setting aside our own fears and concerns and doing something for others.”