Suicide by Cop,☆☆,

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0196-0644(98)70064-2Get rights and content

Abstract

Study objective: “Suicide by cop” is a term used by law enforcement officers to describe an incident in which a suicidal individual intentionally engages in life-threatening and criminal behavior with a lethal weapon or what appears to be a lethal weapon toward law enforcement officers or civilians to specifically provoke officers to shoot the suicidal individual in self-defense or to protect civilians. The objective of this study was to investigate the phenomenon that some individuals attempt or commit suicide by intentionally provoking law enforcement officers to shoot them. Methods: We reviewed all files of officer-involved shootings investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department from 1987 to 1997. Cases met the following criteria: (1) evidence of the individual’s suicidal intent, (2) evidence they specifically wanted officers to shoot them, (3) evidence they possessed a lethal weapon or what appeared to be a lethal weapon, and (4) evidence they intentionally escalated the encounter and provoked officers to shoot them. Results: Suicide by cop accounted for 11% (n=46) of all officer-involved shootings and 13% of all officer-involved justifiable homicides. Ages of suicidal individuals ranged from 18 to 54 years; 98% were male. Forty-eight percent of weapons possessed by suicidal individuals were firearms, 17% replica firearms. The median time from arrival of officers at the scene to the time of the shooting was 15 minutes with 70% of shootings occurring within 30 minutes of arrival of officers. Thirty-nine percent of cases involved domestic violence. Fifty-four percent of suicidal individuals sustained fatal gunshot wounds. All deaths were classified by the coroner as homicides, as opposed to suicides. Conclusion: Suicide by cop is an actual form of suicide. The most appropriate term for this phenomenon is law enforcement–forced-assisted suicide. Law enforcement agencies may be able to develop strategies for early recognition and handling of law enforcement–forced-assisted suicide (suicide by cop). Health care providers involved in the evaluation of potentially suicidal individuals and in the resuscitation of officer-involved shootings should be aware of law enforcement–forced-assisted suicide as a form of suicide. [Hutson HR, Anglin D, Yarbrough J, Hardaway K, Russell M, Strote J, Canter M, Blum B: Suicide by cop. Ann Emerg Med December 1998;32:665-669.]

Section snippets

INTRODUCTION

Throughout the United States, on average 1 person per day is killed by law enforcement officers.1 Some individuals who are shot or killed by law enforcement officers during an officer-involved shooting are actually attempting or committing suicide.1, 2 Initially, these suicidal individuals, in an attempt to achieve their suicidal goal, intentionally engage in life-threatening and criminal behavior with a lethal weapon or what appears to be a lethal weapon to gain the attention of law

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This was a retrospective review of files of all officer-involved shootings investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) Homicide Bureau from January 1, 1987, through December 31, 1997. LASD, which is the largest sheriff’s department in the nation with approximately 12,000 law enforcement officers, investigates officer-involved shootings in areas of Los Angeles County populated by 47% (4.1 million) of the county’s population (includes 35 municipalities and unincorporated

RESULTS

From January 1, 1987, through December 31, 1997, there were a total of 437 officer-involved shootings investigated by LASD; 237 (54.2%) individuals sustained nonfatal gunshot wounds and 200 (45.8%) had fatal gunshot wounds. Of the 437 officer-involved shootings, 46 (10.5%) met the case definition of suicide by cop. Twenty-five (54.3%) suicidal individuals sustained fatal gunshot wounds, and 21 (45.7%) sustained nonfatal gunshot wounds. All cases were separate incidents. A suicide by cop

DISCUSSION

This study shows that suicide by cop is an actual form of suicide and makes up a larger proportion of officer-involved shootings and officer-involved justifiable homicides than was previously recognized. The phenomenon of committing suicide through another person was characterized by Wolfgang6 as a victim-precipitated homicide. Wolfgang defined a victim-precipitated homicide as a “criminal homicide in which the victim is a direct positive precipitator in the crime. The role of the victim is

References (10)

  • RB Parent

    Aspects of Police Use of Deadly Force in British Columbia: The Phenomenon of Victim-Precipitated Homicide

    (1996)
  • CR Van Zandt

    Suicide by cop

    The Police Chief

    (1993;July)
  • Geberth V: Suicide-by-cop. Law and Order...
  • Bureau of the Census

    1990 Census of the Population and Housing: Characteristics for Census Tracts and Block Numbering Areas

    (1993)
  • AG Dean et al.

    Epi Info, version 5: A Word Processing, Database, and Statistics Program for Epidemiology on Microcomputers

    (1990)
There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (78)

  • Examining "suicide by cop": A critical review of the literature

    2016, Aggression and Violent Behavior
    Citation Excerpt :

    It is also unclear whether any of the authors utilizing multiple comparisons used a Fisher's exact test for categorical variables with small or uneven cell size. Finally, when there is missing data, some researchers (e.g. Hutson et al., 1998, Lord, 2014) do not discuss why this might be so, or what methods are used to address the problem. One final limitation of the current research focuses on sampling procedures.

  • The frequency and nature of resolution of potential police provoked shooting encounters

    2014, International Journal of Law and Psychiatry
    Citation Excerpt :

    While the broad phenomenon of victim-precipitated homicide has been recognised for quite some time (Wolfgang, 1959), the research literature really only began specifically focusing on victim-precipitated homicide by police in the last 20 years, with (Geberth, 1993) analysing “incidents in which individuals bent on self-destruction, engage in life-threatening and criminal behaviour in order to force the police to kill them”. The subsequent research into these encounters variously labelled them as suicide-by-cop (Homant & Kennedy, 2000a; Kennedy, Homant, & Hupp, 1998; Lindsay & Lester, 2008; Mohandie, Meloy, & Collins, 2009), law-enforcement-assisted suicide (Lord, 2000), law-enforcement-officer-forced-assisted suicide (Hutson et al., 1998), police-involved–victim-provoked shooting (McKenzie, 2006), victim-precipitated homicide (Parent & Verdun-Jones, 1998) and suicide by police (Homant & Kennedy, 2000b; Kesic, Thomas, & Ogloff, 2012). For consistency, and in line with operational definitions in the state of Victoria, Australia, where this research was conducted, the current paper adopts the term police-provoked shooting.

  • Criminal Justice Outcomes of Suicide by Cop Survivors

    2023, Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
  • Suicide by Cop and Civil Liability for Police

    2023, Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
View all citing articles on Scopus

From the Department of Emergency Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital,* Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA; the Department of Emergency Medicine, Los Angeles County–University of Southern California Medical Center, Homicide Bureau, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department,§ Los Angeles, CA; Harvard Medical School,II Boston, MA; New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY; and Park Dietz & Associates,# Newport Beach, CA.

☆☆

Address for reprints: H Range Hutson, MD, Department of Emergency Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School,75 Francis Street, Boston, MA 02115; 617-732-5640, fax 617-264-6848; E-mail [email protected].

0196-0644/98/$5.00 + 0 47/1/94531

View full text