An examination of police use of deadly force, available at the New York Times -- "3 Cases of ‘Suicide by Cop’? Circumstances Are Murky [By AL BAKER (Published: April 13, 2009 )]:
“To say, ‘What is the criteria?’ There is not a hard, fast rule,” said Vivian B. Lord, the chairwoman of the criminal justice and criminology department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and author of “Suicide by Cop — Inducing Officers to Shoot...”
Determining whether fatal police shootings are calculated attempts to force officers into the role of executioner is difficult, many analysts said. That is because police officers often deal with people in the midst of mania or rage, or face people who are mentally ill or whose judgment is impaired by drugs or alcohol.
“If a person is so mentally deficient that they could not form intent to commit a crime, then their intent to commit suicide would be questioned,” said James J. Drylie, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Kean University in Union, N.J... Dr. Drylie said a recent study in the Journal of Forensic Sciences said that one-third of the roughly 300 justifiable police shootings that occur annually around the nation could be characterized as suicide by cop... [MORE]
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“To say, ‘What is the criteria?’ There is not a hard, fast rule,” said Vivian B. Lord, the chairwoman of the criminal justice and criminology department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and author of “Suicide by Cop — Inducing Officers to Shoot...”
Determining whether fatal police shootings are calculated attempts to force officers into the role of executioner is difficult, many analysts said. That is because police officers often deal with people in the midst of mania or rage, or face people who are mentally ill or whose judgment is impaired by drugs or alcohol.
“If a person is so mentally deficient that they could not form intent to commit a crime, then their intent to commit suicide would be questioned,” said James J. Drylie, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Kean University in Union, N.J... Dr. Drylie said a recent study in the Journal of Forensic Sciences said that one-third of the roughly 300 justifiable police shootings that occur annually around the nation could be characterized as suicide by cop... [MORE]
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Suicide by Cop Among Officer-Involved Shooting Cases (p 456-462)
Kris Mohandie, J. Reid Meloy, Peter I. Collins
Published Online: Feb 11 2009 11:27AM
DOI: 10.1111/j.1556-4029.2008.00981.x
Abstract | References | Full Text: HTML, PDF (Size: 113K)
