Dramatic fatal showdowns are often ‘suicide by cop’

Thursday, Oct. 22, 1998 | 11:16 a.m.

As many as 40 of the approximately 400 people killed each year by police in the United States may actually be committing suicide, says Rick Parent, a patrol officer with the Delta, British Columbia, Police Department who is in the middle of a five-year study on the phenomenon.

"Roughly 10 percent of all fatal police shootings are suicide," he said, adding that Canada typically experiences about a dozen fatal officer-involved shootings annually.

Parent said "suicide by cop" is not new, nor does it seem to be more more prominent in one country over another.

His research on the subject in British Columbia for a master's degree revealed that between 1980 and 1996, "it was a consistent factor of 10 percent, where people will bait the police into using deadly force."

Feelings of guilt or shame, he said, lead some people to seek punishment from an authority figure. "The police are perfect for this. They play the role of surrogate parents in our society."

Police-assisted suicides could also be triggered by anger at authority, Parent said.

The term "suicide by cop" was coined in 1983 by Karl B. Harris, then-acting chief medical examiner for Los Angeles County, who discovered while reviewing cases that the dead person killed by police often was suicidal.

A victim will often bait police into shooting by displaying a weapon that is unloaded or doesn't work, Harris said.

Parent said few statistics exist on the subject for several reasons, one being that police "traditionally don't disclose a lot of information, but because I am a police officer, I was easier to talk to."

Also, he said, because the victims are dead, they can't be interviewed and they seldom leave behind suicide notes explaining their actions.

It had not been determined Wednesday whether the 51-year-old man had left a note behind.

It may be obvious that a victim escalated a deadly situation, but it is more difficult to label it a suicide, Parent said.

The person may be drunk and not pretending to be suicidal, he explained, but rather playing a deadly game of chicken, pushing officers to see how far they will go.

Parent said about 30 percent of those killed by police were mentally ill, intoxicated or suicidal.

Rebecca Valencia-Stincelli, with the Interviews and Interrogations Institute in Orangevale, Calif., published a study on suicide-by-cop this year, looking at the impact the act has on the officer.

"The symptoms are similar to post-traumatic stress disorder," said Valencia-Stincelli, who has conducted seminars for Metro Police.

She said those who commit suicide-by-cop are predominantly male from a lower socioeconomic class.

The officer who kills a person who wants to commit suicide has feelings of "anger, resentment and disbelief" and may experience a temporary diminished feeling of self confidence.

"Intellectually they know they were correct and justified; however, their emotions can sometimes overwhelm their ability to process the experience," Valencia-Stincelli said.