Considerable psychic and physical distress befalling law enforcement officers through a career trajectory is well documented in literature as of late. Up until now, the etiology typically considered for this distress has been identified as constitutionally weak officers who fail to thrive while facing the daily possibility of danger and working within a paramilitary command structure. Now, this heuristic investigation into the old paradigm reveals surprising new information that turns the construct upside down. As partial evidence, the Rodney King incident is candled against trickster mythology of the past. The traumatic daily exposure to the life-transition function of the trickster archetype over extended time is presented for the origin of symptoms as an alternative to blaming the individual officer. The predicted positive outcomes for the individual officer seem to increase remarkably under the influence of culturally-rejected interventions like organizing against oppressive self-blaming and ritual containment of the trickster influence.