Suicide by cop or suicide by police is a suicide method in which a suicidal individual deliberately behaves in a threatening manner, with intent to provoke a lethal response from a public safety or law enforcement officer.[1]
There are two broad categories of "suicide by cop". The first is when someone has committed a crime and is being pursued by the police and decides that they would rather commit suicide than be arrested. These people may not otherwise be suicidal but may simply decide that life is not worth living if they are incarcerated and thus will provoke police to kill them. The second version involves people who are already contemplating suicide and who decide that provoking law enforcement into killing them is the best way to act on their desires. These individuals may commit a crime with the specific intention of provoking a law enforcement response.
The idea of committing suicide in this manner is based on trained procedures of law enforcement officers, specifically the policy on the use of deadly force. In jurisdictions where officials are readily capable of deadly force, often by being equipped with firearms, there are usually set circumstances where they will predictably use deadly force against a threat to themselves or others. This form of suicide functions by exploiting this trained reaction. The most common scenario is pointing a firearm at a police officer or an innocent person, which would be expected to provoke an officer to fire on them. Many variants exist; for example, attacking with a knife or other hand weapon, trying to run an officer or other person over with a car, or trying to trigger a real or presumed explosive device.
This concept hinges on the person's state of mind, and their desire to end their own life, which can be difficult to determine post mortem.[2] Some cases are obvious, such as pointing an unloaded or non-functioning gun, such as a toy gun, air gun, airsoft gun, or starter's pistol, at officers, or the presence of a suicide note. Some suspects brazenly announce their intention to die before they act; however, many cases can be more difficult to determine, as some suspects with the desire to die will actually fire live ammunition and even kill people before being killed themselves. Many law enforcement training programs have added sections to specifically address handling these situations if officers suspect that the subject is attempting to goad them into using lethal force.
History
Many modern cases that pre-date the formal recognition of the phenomenon have been identified or speculated by historians as matching the pattern now known as suicide by cop. According to authors Mark Lindsay and David Lester, Houston McCoy, one of the two Austin Police Department officers who shot and killed Charles Whitman, the "Texas Tower Sniper", believed that Whitman could have shot him and fellow officer Ramiro Martinez, but "he was waiting for them, and wanted to be shot."[3] The 1976 death of Mal Evans, road manager, assistant, and a friend of the Beatles, who aimed an air gun at police and refused to put it down, was theorized as a possible example of this phenomenon.[4] Some historians believe that Giuseppe Zangara, the man who killed Chicago mayor Anton Cermak in a possible attempt to assassinate then President-electFranklin D. Roosevelt, might have been attempting suicide by police.[5] In 2018, Alek Minassian, the perpetrator of the Toronto van attack, claimed to have attempted suicide by cop when apprehended by police after his attack, requesting to be killed and claiming he was armed with a gun, a declaration which was false.[6]
Recognition and research
The phenomenon has been described in news accounts from 1981,[7] and scientific journals since 1985.[7] The phrase has appeared in news headlines since at least 1987.[8] It did not become common until the early 2000s. The phrase seems to have originated in the United States, but has also appeared in the UK, where a jury first determined someone committed suicide by cop in 2003.[9]
Some of the first research into suicide by cop was completed by Sgt. Rick Parent of the Delta Police Department. Parent's research of 843 police shootings determined that about 50% were victim precipitated homicide. Police defined victim precipitated homicide as "an incident in which an individual bent on self-destruction, engages in life threatening and criminal behavior to force law enforcement officers to kill them."[10]
The first formally labeled "Suicide by Cop" case in English legal history was a judgment made on May 9th, 2003 by the Reverend Dr. William Dolman[9] while serving as a London coroner between 1993 and 2007.[11] It set a legal precedent and the judgment, as a cause of death, has been a part of English law since.
A 2009 study in the United States of the profiles of 268 people who committed suicide by cop found that[12]
95% were male and 5% were female
the mean age was 35 for men
41% of men were Caucasian, 26% Hispanic and 16% African American
37% of men were single
29% of men had children
54% of men were unemployed
29% of men did not have housing
62% of men had confirmed or probable histories of mental health issues
80% of men were armed – of these, 60% possessed firearms (of which 86% were loaded) and 26% possessed knives
19% feigned or simulated weapon possession
87% of individuals made suicidal communications prior to and/or during the incident
36% were under the influence of alcohol.
Examples
In the Aramoana massacre, a spree shooting that occurred on 13 November 1990 in New Zealand, police shot the suspect dead as he came out of a house firing from the hip and screaming "Kill me!"[13]
In December 2008, 15-year-old Tyler Cassidy was shot and killed by three Victoria Police officers after he threatened them with two large knives and ordered them to shoot him.[14]
Myron May, a 31-year-old man believing he was a victim of government covert electronic harassment on the line of Cold War era MKUltra and COINTELPRO clandestine US government programs, committed suicide by cop on 20 November 2014 after recording his intentions on tape.[15]
On 4 January 2015, a 32-year-old San Francisco man, Matthew Hoffman, staged a standoff with police in the parking lot of an SFPD station. When he brandished the gun, two officers shot him a total of three times. He left a message for the officers on his cell phone, saying: "You did nothing wrong. You ended the life of a man who was too much of a coward to do it himself ... I provoked you. I threatened your life as well as the lives of those around me."[16]
In June 2015, 21-year-old Trepierre Hummons, a known gangster with a history of weapons violations, posted his intent to commit suicide by cop on Facebook on the same day that a sex offense had been reported against him. He called 9-1-1 and reported he had seen a man acting erratically with a gun. He then shot the responding officer multiple times, mortally wounding him. The next officer to arrive on the scene shot Hummons. Both Hummons and the wounded policeman later died in the hospital.[17]
Anton Lundin Pettersson, the perpetrator of the October 2015 Trollhättan school attack in Sweden, wrote a message to an online friend an hour before the attack, where he says that he expected to be dead within one or two hours, that he hated himself, and hoped that "those fucking cops aim straight, because I really don't want to survive the commotion." Pettersson had a history of mental illness, and a book about the attack with interviews of many people around him states that "during the period before the attack, he wavered between several options; to seek professional help, to kill himself 'normally' or to attack people around him to get killed."[18]
On 28 May 2017, a man in Mississippi suspected of murdering seven of his family members and a police officer told a journalist that by shooting towards police, "Suicide by cop was my intention. I ain't fit to live. Not after what I've done."[19]
In literary fiction
In To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson, a despondent black man who is imprisoned for a rape he did not commit, is shot 17 times and killed while trying to escape from prison in front of the prison guards.[20]
^Stincelli, Rebecca A. (2004). Suicide by police: victims from both sides of the badge. Folsom, Calif: Interviews & Interrogations Institute. ISBN0-9749987-0-2.
^Pinizzotto, Anthony J.; Davis, Edward F.; Miller III, Charles E. (February 2005). "Suicide by Cop." FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. 74 (2):8–20
^Lester, David; Linsday, Markpage=45 (2004). Suicide by Cop: Committing Suicide by Provoking Police to Shoot You. Baywood Publishing Company. ISBN978-0-89503-290-4. from the original on 14 June 2020. Retrieved 22 June 2010.
^"FindArticles.com | CBSi". findarticles.com. from the original on 14 March 2020. Retrieved 3 July 2019.
^"Giuseppe Zangara". Executedtoday.com. 22 March 1933. from the original on 28 September 2020. Retrieved 9 January 2010.
^"Toronto police officer hailed as hero for arresting suspect without firing shot". the Guardian. 24 April 2018. from the original on 26 March 2022. Retrieved 26 March 2022.
^ abZandt, Clinton R. "Suicide by Cop 25 April 2012 at the Wayback Machine." National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime.
^CBC News, "Suicide by cop, a growing phenomenon?" 2 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine. 27 February 2013. For example: "Apparent Suicide By Cop on LIRR," Newsday, 11 April 1987.
^ abAllison, Rebecca (10 May 2003). "UK's first 'suicide by cop' ruling". The Guardian. from the original on 22 October 2019. Retrieved 16 December 2016.
^Parent, Richard 2004. "Aspects of Police Use of Deadly Force In North America – The Phenomenon of Victim-Precipitated Homicide," Ph.D. thesis, Simon Fraser University.
^"Suicide by cop" coroner retires 2009-01-25 at the Wayback Machine, a brief bio of Dolman, December 2007.
^Mohandie, Kris; Meloy, J. Reid; Collins, Peter I. (March 2009). "Suicide by Cop Among Officer-Involved Shooting Cases". Journal of Forensic Sciences. 54 (2): 456–462. doi:10.1111/j.1556-4029.2008.00981.x. PMID 19220654. S2CID 13881748. from the original on 30 April 2022. Retrieved 12 September 2020.
^"World Notes New Zealand". Time. 24 June 2001. from the original on 20 September 2020. Retrieved 21 June 2015.
^"Tyler Cassidy's death 'suicide by cop', coroner told". CourierMail. from the original on 30 April 2022. Retrieved 15 March 2016.
^McPhate, Mike (10 June 2016). "United States of Paranoia: They See Gangs of Stalkers". The New York Times. from the original on 13 June 2020. Retrieved 3 March 2017.
^"The Untold Motives behind Suicide-by-Cop". Officer.com. from the original on 2 September 2017. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
^Brumfield, Ben (21 June 2015). "Police: Cincinnati man calls 911 on self, kills responding officer". CNN. from the original on 25 November 2020. Retrieved 2 March 2016.
^Röstlund, Lisa (27 September 2017). "Mördarens sista meddelande: 'Jag fucking hatar mig själv'". Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish). from the original on 11 November 2020. Retrieved 14 September 2018.
^"Exclusive: Suspect confesses to C-L reporter; 8 dead, including deputy". The Clarion Ledger. from the original on 30 April 2022. Retrieved 17 June 2019.
^Temple, Kathryn (Spring 2014). "What's Old Is New Again: William Blackstone's Theory of Happiness Comes to America". The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation. 55 (1): 129–134. doi:10.1353/ecy.2014.0006. ISSN 1935-0201. S2CID 145016032. Retrieved 26 July 2022. Tom Robinson, the black man falsely charged with rape, commits what some call 'suicide by cop,' attempting to escape from prison under circumstances that assure his death. p. 131
Further reading
Lindsay, M.; Lester, D. (2004). Suicide by Cop: Committing Suicide by Provoking Police to Shoot You. Amityville, NY: Baywood. ISBN0-89503-290-2.
Mohandie, K.; Meloy, J. R.; Collins, P. I. (2009). "Suicide by Cop Among Officer-Involved Shooting Cases". Journal of Forensic Sciences. 54 (2): 456–462. doi:10.1111/j.1556-4029.2008.00981.x. PMID 19220654. S2CID 13881748.
External links
Law enforcement suicide prevention resources 28 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine
FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin: February, 2005; Volume 74; Number 2 29 December 2016 at the Wayback Machine
An information portal with support resources for Law Enforcement officers
January 15, 2023
suicide, suicide, police, suicide, method, which, suicidal, individual, deliberately, behaves, threatening, manner, with, intent, provoke, lethal, response, from, public, safety, enforcement, officer, contents, overview, history, recognition, research, example. Suicide by cop or suicide by police is a suicide method in which a suicidal individual deliberately behaves in a threatening manner with intent to provoke a lethal response from a public safety or law enforcement officer 1 Contents 1 Overview 2 History 3 Recognition and research 4 Examples 5 In literary fiction 6 See also 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External linksOverview EditThere are two broad categories of suicide by cop The first is when someone has committed a crime and is being pursued by the police and decides that they would rather commit suicide than be arrested These people may not otherwise be suicidal but may simply decide that life is not worth living if they are incarcerated and thus will provoke police to kill them The second version involves people who are already contemplating suicide and who decide that provoking law enforcement into killing them is the best way to act on their desires These individuals may commit a crime with the specific intention of provoking a law enforcement response The idea of committing suicide in this manner is based on trained procedures of law enforcement officers specifically the policy on the use of deadly force In jurisdictions where officials are readily capable of deadly force often by being equipped with firearms there are usually set circumstances where they will predictably use deadly force against a threat to themselves or others This form of suicide functions by exploiting this trained reaction The most common scenario is pointing a firearm at a police officer or an innocent person which would be expected to provoke an officer to fire on them Many variants exist for example attacking with a knife or other hand weapon trying to run an officer or other person over with a car or trying to trigger a real or presumed explosive device This concept hinges on the person s state of mind and their desire to end their own life which can be difficult to determine post mortem 2 Some cases are obvious such as pointing an unloaded or non functioning gun such as a toy gun air gun airsoft gun or starter s pistol at officers or the presence of a suicide note Some suspects brazenly announce their intention to die before they act however many cases can be more difficult to determine as some suspects with the desire to die will actually fire live ammunition and even kill people before being killed themselves Many law enforcement training programs have added sections to specifically address handling these situations if officers suspect that the subject is attempting to goad them into using lethal force History EditMany modern cases that pre date the formal recognition of the phenomenon have been identified or speculated by historians as matching the pattern now known as suicide by cop According to authors Mark Lindsay and David Lester Houston McCoy one of the two Austin Police Department officers who shot and killed Charles Whitman the Texas Tower Sniper believed that Whitman could have shot him and fellow officer Ramiro Martinez but he was waiting for them and wanted to be shot 3 The 1976 death of Mal Evans road manager assistant and a friend of the Beatles who aimed an air gun at police and refused to put it down was theorized as a possible example of this phenomenon 4 Some historians believe that Giuseppe Zangara the man who killed Chicago mayor Anton Cermak in a possible attempt to assassinate then President elect Franklin D Roosevelt might have been attempting suicide by police 5 In 2018 Alek Minassian the perpetrator of the Toronto van attack claimed to have attempted suicide by cop when apprehended by police after his attack requesting to be killed and claiming he was armed with a gun a declaration which was false 6 Recognition and research EditThe phenomenon has been described in news accounts from 1981 7 and scientific journals since 1985 7 The phrase has appeared in news headlines since at least 1987 8 It did not become common until the early 2000s The phrase seems to have originated in the United States but has also appeared in the UK where a jury first determined someone committed suicide by cop in 2003 9 Some of the first research into suicide by cop was completed by Sgt Rick Parent of the Delta Police Department Parent s research of 843 police shootings determined that about 50 were victim precipitated homicide Police defined victim precipitated homicide as an incident in which an individual bent on self destruction engages in life threatening and criminal behavior to force law enforcement officers to kill them 10 The first formally labeled Suicide by Cop case in English legal history was a judgment made on May 9th 2003 by the Reverend Dr William Dolman 9 while serving as a London coroner between 1993 and 2007 11 It set a legal precedent and the judgment as a cause of death has been a part of English law since A 2009 study in the United States of the profiles of 268 people who committed suicide by cop found that 12 95 were male and 5 were female the mean age was 35 for men 41 of men were Caucasian 26 Hispanic and 16 African American 37 of men were single 29 of men had children 54 of men were unemployed 29 of men did not have housing 62 of men had confirmed or probable histories of mental health issues 80 of men were armed of these 60 possessed firearms of which 86 were loaded and 26 possessed knives 19 feigned or simulated weapon possession 87 of individuals made suicidal communications prior to and or during the incident 36 were under the influence of alcohol Examples EditIn the Aramoana massacre a spree shooting that occurred on 13 November 1990 in New Zealand police shot the suspect dead as he came out of a house firing from the hip and screaming Kill me 13 In December 2008 15 year old Tyler Cassidy was shot and killed by three Victoria Police officers after he threatened them with two large knives and ordered them to shoot him 14 Myron May a 31 year old man believing he was a victim of government covert electronic harassment on the line of Cold War era MKUltra and COINTELPRO clandestine US government programs committed suicide by cop on 20 November 2014 after recording his intentions on tape 15 On 4 January 2015 a 32 year old San Francisco man Matthew Hoffman staged a standoff with police in the parking lot of an SFPD station When he brandished the gun two officers shot him a total of three times He left a message for the officers on his cell phone saying You did nothing wrong You ended the life of a man who was too much of a coward to do it himself I provoked you I threatened your life as well as the lives of those around me 16 In June 2015 21 year old Trepierre Hummons a known gangster with a history of weapons violations posted his intent to commit suicide by cop on Facebook on the same day that a sex offense had been reported against him He called 9 1 1 and reported he had seen a man acting erratically with a gun He then shot the responding officer multiple times mortally wounding him The next officer to arrive on the scene shot Hummons Both Hummons and the wounded policeman later died in the hospital 17 Anton Lundin Pettersson the perpetrator of the October 2015 Trollhattan school attack in Sweden wrote a message to an online friend an hour before the attack where he says that he expected to be dead within one or two hours that he hated himself and hoped that those fucking cops aim straight because I really don t want to survive the commotion Pettersson had a history of mental illness and a book about the attack with interviews of many people around him states that during the period before the attack he wavered between several options to seek professional help to kill himself normally or to attack people around him to get killed 18 On 28 May 2017 a man in Mississippi suspected of murdering seven of his family members and a police officer told a journalist that by shooting towards police Suicide by cop was my intention I ain t fit to live Not after what I ve done 19 In literary fiction EditIn To Kill a Mockingbird Tom Robinson a despondent black man who is imprisoned for a rape he did not commit is shot 17 times and killed while trying to escape from prison in front of the prison guards 20 See also EditBanzai charge Circumcellions Consensual homicide Lists of killings by law enforcement officers Police brutality Running amok Samaritans charity Suicide crisis Suicide intervention Suicide preventionReferences Edit Stincelli Rebecca A 2004 Suicide by police victims from both sides of the badge Folsom Calif Interviews amp Interrogations Institute ISBN 0 9749987 0 2 Pinizzotto Anthony J Davis Edward F Miller III Charles E February 2005 Suicide by Cop FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin 74 2 8 20 Lester David Linsday Markpage 45 2004 Suicide by Cop Committing Suicide by Provoking Police to Shoot You Baywood Publishing Company ISBN 978 0 89503 290 4 Archived from the original on 14 June 2020 Retrieved 22 June 2010 FindArticles com CBSi findarticles com Archived from the original on 14 March 2020 Retrieved 3 July 2019 Giuseppe Zangara Executedtoday com 22 March 1933 Archived from the original on 28 September 2020 Retrieved 9 January 2010 Toronto police officer hailed as hero for arresting suspect without firing shot the Guardian 24 April 2018 Archived from the original on 26 March 2022 Retrieved 26 March 2022 a b Zandt Clinton R Suicide by Cop Archived 25 April 2012 at the Wayback Machine National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime CBC News Suicide by cop a growing phenomenon Archived 2 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine 27 February 2013 For example Apparent Suicide By Cop on LIRR Newsday 11 April 1987 a b Allison Rebecca 10 May 2003 UK s first suicide by cop ruling The Guardian Archived from the original on 22 October 2019 Retrieved 16 December 2016 Parent Richard 2004 Aspects of Police Use of Deadly Force In North America The Phenomenon of Victim Precipitated Homicide Ph D thesis Simon Fraser University Suicide by cop coroner retires Archived 2009 01 25 at the Wayback Machine a brief bio of Dolman December 2007 Mohandie Kris Meloy J Reid Collins Peter I March 2009 Suicide by Cop Among Officer Involved Shooting Cases Journal of Forensic Sciences 54 2 456 462 doi 10 1111 j 1556 4029 2008 00981 x PMID 19220654 S2CID 13881748 Archived from the original on 30 April 2022 Retrieved 12 September 2020 World Notes New Zealand Time 24 June 2001 Archived from the original on 20 September 2020 Retrieved 21 June 2015 Tyler Cassidy s death suicide by cop coroner told CourierMail Archived from the original on 30 April 2022 Retrieved 15 March 2016 McPhate Mike 10 June 2016 United States of Paranoia They See Gangs of Stalkers The New York Times Archived from the original on 13 June 2020 Retrieved 3 March 2017 The Untold Motives behind Suicide by Cop Officer com Archived from the original on 2 September 2017 Retrieved 26 May 2017 Brumfield Ben 21 June 2015 Police Cincinnati man calls 911 on self kills responding officer CNN Archived from the original on 25 November 2020 Retrieved 2 March 2016 Rostlund Lisa 27 September 2017 Mordarens sista meddelande Jag fucking hatar mig sjalv Dagens Nyheter in Swedish Archived from the original on 11 November 2020 Retrieved 14 September 2018 Exclusive Suspect confesses to C L reporter 8 dead including deputy The Clarion Ledger Archived from the original on 30 April 2022 Retrieved 17 June 2019 Temple Kathryn Spring 2014 What s Old Is New Again William Blackstone s Theory of Happiness Comes to America The Eighteenth Century Theory and Interpretation 55 1 129 134 doi 10 1353 ecy 2014 0006 ISSN 1935 0201 S2CID 145016032 Retrieved 26 July 2022 Tom Robinson the black man falsely charged with rape commits what some call suicide by cop attempting to escape from prison under circumstances that assure his death p 131Further reading EditLindsay M Lester D 2004 Suicide by Cop Committing Suicide by Provoking Police to Shoot You Amityville NY Baywood ISBN 0 89503 290 2 Mohandie K Meloy J R Collins P I 2009 Suicide by Cop Among Officer Involved Shooting Cases Journal of Forensic Sciences 54 2 456 462 doi 10 1111 j 1556 4029 2008 00981 x PMID 19220654 S2CID 13881748 External links EditResults of one study of the phenomenon Law enforcement suicide prevention resources Archived 28 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin February 2005 Volume 74 Number 2 Archived 29 December 2016 at the Wayback Machine An information portal with support resources for Law Enforcement officers Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Suicide by cop amp oldid 1130433804, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
