Rise in 'suicide by cop' making impact in Pittsburgh area

[HiredGoon]

Rise in 'suicide by cop' making impact here

4 killings in '09 in standoffs could be examples

Sunday, March 15, 2009
By Jerome L. Sherman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

He vowed not to be taken alive. He told negotiators where he wanted to be buried. He fired several shots at police.

"I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die," Lamar Smith shouted during a nine-hour standoff Jan. 8 at an apartment building in North Point Breeze, according to witnesses.

In the end, the 29-year-old Mr. Smith did die, after a sharpshooter's bullet struck him in the chest. At that moment, he was moving toward SWAT officers with two guns in his hands, police said after the incident.

The Allegheny County district attorney's office is still investigating what happened, but one expert described Mr. Smith's death as a likely example of "suicide by cop."

"He fired at police. That's an attempted homicide on a police officer. That's serious stuff," said Kris Mohandie, a police and forensic psychologist based in Pasadena, Calif. "He's creating the end of his story."

It also has become an increasingly common way of ending one's life, according to a study organized by Dr. Mohandie and published this month in the Journal of Forensic Sciences.

After Dr. Mohandie and a team of researchers looked closely at 707 officer-involved shootings that occurred across North America from 1998 to 2006, they determined that 256 cases, or 36 percent of the total, involved people who were trying to be killed by police.

"I was blown away. I expected about 20 percent," said Dr. Mohandie, who has worked as a consultant for the Los Angeles Police Department.

Earlier studies did find lower percentages, but this new research encompasses a far larger number of cases, he said. Investigators also have become better at recognizing suicide-by-cop situations, taking note of a person's past suicidal behavior, psychological history, substance abuse patterns and relationship problems before they encounter police.

According to Dr. Mohandie's study, 95 percent of the people involved were male and 80 percent were armed during the incidents, the majority of them with guns. Ninety percent took some form of aggressive action against police, and 51 percent were killed during the confrontations.

The vast majority of the incidents were unplanned, but most did involve some type of "suicidal communications." Slightly more than 60 percent of the people involved had a history of mental health problems.

Dr. Mohandie said the study demonstrates the critical importance of enhanced training for officers on how to deal with someone who is contemplating suicide. But it also shows that, in some instances, there is a limit to what law enforcement can do.

"They were already suicidal and encountered police," Dr. Mohandie said. "That was the final straw. They say, 'I'm not going in. Kill me.' "

Since the beginning of the year, police in the region have shot and killed four people, including Mr. Smith. At least two had threatened to harm themselves, and all four had histories of mental health troubles or substance abuse.

There's much more to the story at the link above, if you're interested.

[ScaredOnce]

I still see the same self-professed suicidal emo kids at the coffee shops in Oakland/Shadyside/Sw. Hill, so they're seemingly missing the cool thing to do.