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“SUICIDE-BY-COP”:
 LIABILITY, TRAINING, AND MUNICIPAL CONCERNS

By John G. Peters, Jr., M.B.A., Ph.D., COI

Shoot me, but don’t mess up my face.

If the cops don’t shoot me, I’ll shoot them.  

These are actual quotes from two people who forced the police to shoot them in what has become known as suicide-by-cop. Suicide-by-cop is defined as a “violent confrontation with a police officer which results in the killing of a person wishing to die.” According to Flynn and Homant, the term suicide-by-cop has been used informally since the 1980s and was initially called “suicide-by-police.” The first time a newspaper article used the term suicide-by-cop was on August 26, 1991. It appeared in the San Diego, California, Union Tribune. For purposes of this article, suicide-by-cop and officer assisted suicide will be used interchangeably. Regardless of the label used to describe this phenomenon, it is occurring more frequently across the United States.

Officer Assisted Suicide: How
Frequent Is It?

Individuals who engage in violent behavior which forces the police to intervene and use deadly force are only a small percentage of those individuals who commit suicide each year. According to the World Health Organization, “one person commits suicide about every 40 seconds.” In the United States, suicide was the eighth leading cause of death in 1998 with 30,575 people taking their lives. While no accurate number of officer assisted suicide incidents has been reported in the United States, Hutson et al  found in their study of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department shootings that 11% of all officer involved shootings and 13% of all officer involved justifiable homicides could be classified as suicide-by-cop. Homant, Kennedy, and Hupp (2000) report that by 1997, 25 percent of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department officer involved shootings were classified as suicide-by-cop.

Homant, Kennedy, and Hupp conducted their own study of 240 police shooting incidents. They obtained these incidents from a newspaper database and attempted to identify the frequency of suicide-by-cop, officer involved shootings. Their analysis showed that “11% were classified as probably suicides by cop [with] an additional 35% [as] suicide by cop motivation.”

In summary, based upon the data obtained from these studies, it is reasonable to conclude that the trend of officer assisted suicide incidents will increase in frequency. Therefore, it is reasonable to argue that officers will need to be trained about this phenomenon. One element of that training should include the victims’ motives.

Victim Motives: Psychodynamic, Social, Practical and/or Manipulative

Stone identifies 14 reasons why people may commit suicide. These are:

•        Altruistic/heroic suicide: The person dies for the good of the group (e.g., throwing oneself on a grenade to save others who are in the immediate vicinity).

•        Philosophical suicide: The person may ascribe to a philosophical belief that under certain circumstances, it is okay to take one’s life.

• Religious suicide: The person may believe that his religious belief allows suicide under certain circumstances. The Branch Davidians and Jim Jones’ followers are two primary examples.

• Escape from an unbearable situation: Individuals who suffer from a terminal illness (e.g., AIDS) or who are in chronic misery (e.g., killers who have killed others and are tormented by what they have done; unbearable may also mean failing an exam in school) are included in this category.

• Excess alcohol and other drug use: The excessive use of alcohol may cause one to lose friends, job, family, etc. which can lead to a feeling of isolation.

• Romantic suicide: After a loved one dies, the remaining family member feels that (s)he cannot live without the decedent.

•        Anniversary suicide: The individual commits suicide on the anniversary date of a loved one who may have committed suicide. Generally, the same method of suicide is used.

•        Contagion suicide: Better known as copycat suicide, this often occurs among younger people.

• An attempt to manipulate others: Suicide is the ultimate “screw you” as the individual who commits suicide is able to control others after (s)he is gone.

• Seek help or send a distress signal: The individual may be experiencing emotional pain and this is the only way to get someone’s attention (generally, a parent’s).

• Magical thinking and punishment: Killing oneself is the ultimate in power over another person. “You’ll be sorry when I’m dead” is a familiar fantasy of the person who commits suicide.

• Cultural approval: Traditional Japanese society has encouraged and accepted suicide as an acceptable method to take responsibility for personal or organizational mistakes.

• Lack of an outside source to blame for one’s misery: If the individual has an outside source to blame for his (or her) problems, homicide is often seen as the extreme response (e.g., Nazi concentration inmates had a low suicide rate). In contrast, where there is no outside source which can be easily identified, the individual tends to fall into depression and suicide.

• Other: The literature surfaces that there are multiple causes underlying most suicides.

Homant, Kennedy, and Hupp have categorized those individuals who might engage in suicide-by-cop behavior as psychodynamic, social values, practical, and/or manipulative.  The authors noted these four explanations are not mutually exclusive and can be seen as complementing each other.

Psychodynamic

• The individual desires to obtain maximum media attention which may help erase inadequate feeling;

• (S)he wants to place a guilt feeling on someone with authority (e.g., police officer); or

• (S)he finds release therapy in the fantasy of dying in a shoot-out with the police.

Social Values

• The individual believes that suicide is a sin and, therefore, can justify it at the hands of the police;

• If the police kill him or her, the death is legally sanctioned; or

• (S)he does not want to face jail (or a similar fate).

Practical

• The individual cannot muster the ability to take his (or her) life;

• The individual is reasonably sure that the police will kill him (or her) and not fail; or

•        Financially, an insurance policy may cover the family if the police do the killing.

Manipulative

• The individual simply wants to make the police, the municipality, etc. look bad in the eyes of the public and media.

As one can see, there are many reasons why a person may commit suicide. Regardless of the reasons underlying the person’s suicidal death, police administrators and trainers must prepare officers for the reasonable handling of such incidents.

Police Tactics and Training Issues

According to surveys by mental health and law enforcement researchers, it is estimated that one of every ten police calls for service in the United States, including one in ten arrests, involves an individual with a mental disorder. If this is a reasonable estimate, most police officers will come into contact with individuals who are mentally ill. Accordingly, many police agencies are developing training programs for their officers on how to reasonably interface with mentally ill individuals. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that a 1999 survey of 194 cities in the United States found that over 40 percent had developed training programs which teach officers how to handle people who are mentally ill.

Training in reasonable intervention strategies for the handling of mentally ill violators must dovetail into existing police training. For example, Hutson, et al found that suicidal individuals had firearms in 48 percent of their incidents and that 70% of the shootings occurred within 30 minutes after the officers arrived on the scene. Homant, Kennedy, and Hupp found that the most common problem mentioned to the officers were family or domestic issues and alcohol and/or drug issues (33 percent). Hence, deadly and nondeadly force training should include scenarios involving mentally ill subjects. Also, Verbal Judo or another verbal-based de-escalation strategy must include how to handle mentally ill subjects and include interactive scenarios.

Personnel who are most likely to take the initial incoming call (i.e., desk personnel, dispatchers, etc.) also need this specialized training. Trained call takers can ask important questions which may help to identify the caller’s intentions, or identify other important information. Such information may go unasked unless the call taker is reasonably trained.

Officer safety training also needs to incorporate tactics and strategies for the handling of those violators who are perceived by the officer to be exhibiting strange behavior. For example, scenarios should include a mentally ill violator who is located in a vehicle; one who has taken a hostage; and also one who is being engaged by the officer as they both are walking and/or running. Safety zones, kill zones, etc. need to be reviewed specifically with the focus on how to safely engage mentally ill violators.

Training may also include qualifying officers on the use of pepper spray, bean-bag projectiles, and/or electronic pulse technology (e.g.,TASER®), high-powered water hoses, ballistic shields, etc. These tools can be used very effectively against a mentally ill violator – provided that it is reasonable to use such tools – and also that the officer is deemed competent in their use.

Teamwork becomes very critical in many potential suicide-by-cop situations. The integration of a SWAT team or other specialized team – and how it will work with others at the scene – is of vital importance. Cross training of personnel in other officers’ functions may need to be done so that officers are better equipped to handle a situation. Of course, departmental policy may need to be updated, too.

According to Milwaukee-based police defense attorney, Gregg J. Gunta, of Gunta & Reak, S.C., there is “no obligation to find out the motives of the violator. There often isn’t time to identify a person’s motives and obtain his or her medical or psychiatric history. Keep in mind that while such knowledge may be helpful, the information may not affect the outcome of a tense and dynamic situation.”

Policy and training often complement each other and, in some cases, without ongoing review of either or both, they may conflict which may cause difficulty should that become the focus during litigation. One such area is the use of terminology.

Deadly Force Policies, the Police Administrator, and the Training Officer

Keep your policies clear, concise, and to the point. This includes your agency’s use-of-force policy and its policies regarding the handling and transporting of mentally ill prisoners. Several so-called use-of-force instructors and workshop lawyers (without trial experience) often advise to get very detailed in policy. Remember: The more that is in the policy, the more an officer must remember and the more it is subject to scrutiny. Also, if the policy is long, cumbersome, etc., the officer may forget part of it during his (or her) direct and/or cross-examination testimony.

The police administrator and the training officer should work jointly on developing policy language which will help clarify the roles of officers on the scene of a potential suicide-by-cop incident or an incident which involves a mentally ill person. For example, the policy may note that the first officer on the scene is the incident commander. This is consistent with training recommendations. Also, the policy should identify when the use of the SWAT and/or hostage negotiators should be notified. The policy should also outline the procedure for the reasonable handling of the officer who has been involved in a shooting (offering psychological services, etc.).

The days of having one person drafting high risk policies (e.g., pursuit, use of force, etc.) are over. Policy decisions should include input from other officers, the city attorney, attorneys who handle defense litigation claims for insurance companies, and local mental health professionals. Including mental health professionals may provide insights into areas which are important, but unfamiliar, to police personnel. One such area is the use of psychological autopsies.

Psychological Autopsy:
Its Relevance and Use

According to Shneidman, “the words psychological autopsy tell us that the procedure has to do with clarifying the nature of a death and that it focuses on the psychological aspects of the death.” When a law enforcement agency is confronted with an officer assisted suicide or a fatal use of force which involves a mental illness victim, the use of a psychological autopsy can help to clarify many issues which might otherwise go undetected and ultimately help the investigation of the confrontation.

Historically, the four modes of death include natural, accident, suicide, and homicide. If the death does not fit into one of these categories, then it is generally classified as natural. However, if a person drowned, the certification of death does not indicate whether the person might have struggled prior to drowning – making it an accident – or might have intentionally drowned, making it a suicide.

The effective use of the psychological autopsy will help to clear away obstacles and questions about a person’s death when that death is unclear (e.g., positional asphyxia, suicide, suicide-by-cop). In essence, the investigator reconstructs the last 24 to 48 hours or the final weeks of the decedent’s life. This is done primarily through interviews with relatives, friends, associates, medical professionals, health care professionals, pharmacists, etc. 

Shneidman offers some guidelines which may be included in a psychological autopsy. These include, but are not limited to:

• Victim information (e.g., age, address, name, marital status, employment, religious practices, etc.);

• Death information (e.g., where, when, method, etc.);

• Victim’s history (e.g., medical illnesses, mental illnesses, medication, psychotherapy, prior suicide attempts, etc.);

• Victim’s family history (e.g., other family member suicides, cancers, fatal diseases, early deaths, etc.);

• Victim’s personality and lifestyle (e.g., depressive, gay/lesbian, etc.);

• Victim’s typical response to stress, emotional upsets (e.g., anger, violence, quiet, etc.);

• Victim’s recent pressures, tensions, etc. (e.g., upsets, pressures, etc. for last few days to last 12 months);

• Victim’s use of alcohol or drugs (e.g., frequency, type, when last used, etc.);

• Victim’s interpersonal relationships (e.g., family, children, physicians, police, psychologists, psychiatrists, mental health professionals, etc.);

• Victim’s fantasies, dreams, etc. (e.g., to include premonitions, fears, particularly about death, suicide, etc.);

• Victim’s personal changes (e.g., hobbies, eating, taking prescribed medications, sexual patterns, other life routines, etc.);

• Victim’s life side (e.g., upswings, personal plans, professional plans, successes, failures, etc.);

• Victim’s assessment intention (i.e., what role the victim played in his or her demise);

• Victim’s lethality rating (e.g., high, medium, low, absent);

• People’s reaction to victim’s death (e.g., expected, unexpected, shock, etc.); and

•        Comments, special features.

Every law enforcement agency should have one (or more) investigators trained to perform a psychological autopsy. What is discovered during a psychological autopsy may be instrumental in minimizing or eliminating law enforcement liability. It may also help the medical examiner or coroner when it comes time to certify the death.

Death Certification:
Developing New Guidelines

Most suicide-by-cop victims are classified as homicide by a medical examiner or coroner. Hutson et al  argue that the “criteria for the determination of suicide should be expanded to include law enforcement forced assisted suicide.” This expansion should be the result of the collaborative efforts of law enforcement professionals, the medical examiner or coroner, and other professionals (e.g., district attorney, mental health professionals, etc.). 

The primary benefit of having a suicide-by-cop victim classified as having committed suicide is that it may help to minimize potential liability of the law enforcement agency. It will also be a more accurate classification of the victim’s death and it may help the shooting officer through the grief process of having been forced to shoot someone.

What About the Shooting Officer? Ethical, Emotional, and
Other Interventions

Did I do the right thing?

Why did she make me shoot her?

When there is a suicide-by-cop incident, there are at least four tragedies and victims: the person who forced the officer to shoot, plus his (or her) family and the shooting officer and his (or her) family. The officer who is involved in the shooting, witnesses the shooting, or hears about it may develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

According to nationally recognized clinical psychologist, Dr. Julian Timothy Adams, characteristic symptoms of PTSD include, but are not limited to, persistent re-exposure of the traumatic event (playing it over in your mind) and numbing. Dr. Adams, a former auxiliary police officer with a metropolitan Washington, D.C., area police department and former chairperson of the clinical psychology graduate program at an internationally-recognized university, notes that after a suicide-by-cop incident, or most shooting incidents, the shooting officer may experience guilt and begin to second-guess his or her actions. “It is important to watch how the police officer interprets what has happened,” he says. This is consistent with what has been written about PTSD symptoms of officers who were involved in a suicide-by-cop situation.

In an article by R. Stincelli (www.suicidebycop.com), the author lists several PTSD symptoms of officers which include, but are not limited to, “resentment, disbelief, a preoccupation of the incident, nightmares, anxiety, hypervigilence, diminished self-confidence, social avoidance, changes in eating and/or sleeping habits, hypersensitivity, depression, ambivalence, feeling a loss of control, and memory difficulties.” It is important for criminal justice administrators, managers, supervisors, coworkers, and family members to know these symptoms. If one or more of these symptoms manifest in the officer, (s)he should be encouraged to seek professional help.

“I suggest that any officer involved in a shooting make contact as soon as possible with an uninterested third party such as a priest, mental health professional, etc. who has professional privilege and discuss the incident. If the officer is not back to his daily activities within a four to six week window, (s)he needs to see a professional psychologist for counseling,” advises Dr. Adams.

The shooting officer, witnessing officers, and/or those officers who may have heard about it need to be monitored for PTSD symptoms. In her article, Stincelli quotes Dr. John H. Chamberlin of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department regarding the frequency of PTSD in officers. “Eighty-six percent of individuals involved experience transitory reactions. Up to one third of these may even experience moderate to severe reactions, while three to five percent experience more disruptive, long-term reactions.”

“No matter how often the officer replays the incident and second-guesses him- or herself, it will not bring back the individual. The real issue is how the officer can move on from here,” notes Dr. Adams. Although the initial incident is over, there may be weeks of ongoing investigations, the convening of a grand jury, and/or the filing of civil litigation. Those officers who were involved in the suicide-by-cop incident will need support as they journey through this maze of events. If there is a grand jury convened or civil litigation filed, one concern of the shooting officer is whether his (or her) actions – shooting the violator – will be deemed excessive force.

So, Is It Excessive Force?

Is the shooting of a violator who forces the police to shoot him (or her) the use of excessive force? Until a jury or a judge enters a verdict for (or against) the shooting officer, no one will truly know. Even after the verdict is rendered, appeals can ultimately lead to a different outcome. Recall in Graham, the United States Supreme Court held that the question is whether the officer’s actions are objectively reasonable in light of the facts and circumstances confronting him (or her) without regard to the underlying intent or motivation. Reasonableness, the Court noted, must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, not with the 20/20 vision of hindsight. In short, whether the force used by the officer was excessive will be evaluated on a case by case basis.

The Seventh Circuit reported the first decision which involved a suicide-by-cop case. In Palmquist v. Selvik, 111 F. 3d. 1332 (7th Cir. 1997), it articulated the principle “that what matters is the degree of danger that a reasonable officer would perceive himself (or others) to be in, given what the shooting officer was aware of at the time.”

Notice that the focus is upon the reasonable officer’s perception of danger at the time force was used. This time frame issue was decided in a seminal Seventh Circuit decision in Sherrod v. Berry, 856 F2d 802 (7th Cir. 1988). The Seventh Circuit held “. . .we are convinced that the objective reasonableness standard. . .requires that [the officer’s] liability be determined exclusively upon an examination and weighing of the information [the officer] possessed immediately prior to and at the very moment he fired the fatal shot.”

Officers should be trained on these and other cases, so they will understand how the courts will evaluate their actions. This knowledge also applies to writing the police report surrounding an officer assisted suicide incident. The report needs to be accurate, thorough, without police jargon, and contain the facts of the incident, particularly at the time force was used.

Criminal justice administrators can also help to minimize municipal, individual, and officer liability by creating good policies with the help of lawyers who specialize in defending police officers and municipalities. Consistent, contemporary, and documented training will help to minimize officer and municipality liability. Finally, if an officer is involved in an officer assisted suicide incident – or any shooting, for that matter – the timely notification of legal counsel for guidance may also minimize liability concerns and issues.

Summary

Based upon research data, officer assisted suicide incidents appear to be on the rise. What began as a questionable phenomenon in the last century is now a recognized category of suicidal behavior. Make sure that your agency’s policy and procedures are contemporary and address this high risk issue. Officers need to be reasonably trained on these policies and procedures, in addition to receiving training on intervention strategies for the handling of mentally ill people. Lastly, but possibly most important, protocols for the sensitive handling of officers who were involved in the shooting, witnessed the shooting, or heard about the shooting must be developed, trained on, and followed by personnel. After all, employees are the most valuable assets of any organization.

About the Author: John G. Peters, Jr., M.B.A., Ph.D., COI, is founder and Chief Operating Officer of the internationally recognized training firm, Defensive Tactics Institute, Inc. He is also assistant professor at Regent University (Northern Virginia campus) and a former police administrator, police officer, and deputy sheriff. He has been providing training and consulting to police officers and agencies since 1979 in defensive tactics, use of force, Title VII, and on timely management issues (e.g., suicide-by-cop, sexual harassment, sudden in custody death, police development, etc.). He also serves as an expert witness in federal and state courts across the United States in the areas of police management practices, police tactical procedures, use of force, and Title VII. His consulting firm, John G. Peters, Jr. & Associates, has the largest known database comprised of primary research on the patterns and practices of sexual harassment inside United States law enforcement agencies. At Regent University, he teaches organizational leadership and management, plus research and statistics. His research interests include officer assisted suicide, workplace violence, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, workplace romance, and applied management issues (e.g., managing Generation X). He has published eight books, 125 articles, 32 videos, and four audiocassettes. He is also a certified on-line instructor/trainer and has developed several on-line courses.