"Roid Rage

Big, bald, bad, buffed and badged. Steroids are listed by the Drug Enforcement Agency as a Schedule III substance, like morphine, opium, barbiturates and other prescription drugs.

James Batsel IV was a police officer in Riverdale, a suburb of Atlanta. In 1993, he joined a group of police officers who, in addition to bulking up on steroids, burglarized stores and nightclubs in the Atlanta area. During one of those burglaries, Batsel shot and killed a nightclub owner. In his defense, Batsel blamed the murder on the steroids he was using.

Michael Tweedy, a former police officer in Petersburg, Va., was sentenced in April for repeatedly stomping a man in the head while he lay on the ground choking on his own blood. In court testimony, steroid use was cited as a contributing factor to his violent behavior.

(No donut sprinkles defense?)

There is a scientific explanation for the violent behavior exhibited by steroid abusers, says Linn Goldberg, a professor of medicine at Oregon Health & Science University and an expert on steroid abuse.

"Your dopamine receptors are changed," he said, referring to the chemical in the brain that transmit nerve signals. "They help guard against a lack of impulse control."

Steroid abusers lack the same level of control that non-users have. "They have uncontrolled aggressive feelings. Their judgment is impaired," Goldberg said.

"The problem with steroids is that they make you feel you are invulnerable, so you become more aggressive and you're more likely to use aggression as well," he added.

Other side effects of steroid abuse include depression, mania, suicide risks, erratic mood swings, shrunken testicles, cancerous tumors, kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke and stunted growth.

But the fact that violent mood swings can occur among police officers who carry a gun concerns many, including Goldberg. "It's very scary to me," he said.

Why use steroids? "Fear" say psych experts. That wouldn't explain why the cops in my podunk village of 17,000 use steroids. Unless fear of Rhode's being out of free donuts is justifiable. The last murder here was the murder/suicide of a town doctor. Seems the doc was boinking a patient's wife and possibly supplying both with narcotics. Rule of cop-thumb here is give any potential serious call 15 minutes and then arrive to clean up. Or if the call comes from the west side, the "bad" part of town (Black) send 8 cars to arrest Tyrone for public intoxication.

Maybe in big cities or other areas of the country a guy needs extra muscle (and disappearing penis) to take down "an 86-year-old woman has been sent to jail after police said she called 911 dispatchers 20 times in a little more than a half-hour to complain about a pizza parlor." When an officer arrived at her apartment, the 5-foot-tall, 98-pound woman attacked him…scratched him, kicked and bit his hand…

And there's all those 5 y/o children to subdue.