Suicide by Cop: A New Perspective on an Old Phenomenon

Abstract

Suicide by cop (SbC) occurs when an individual purposely engages in threatening behavior toward police officers in an attempt to be killed. Previous studies have found the prototypical SbC subject is male, mid-30s, with disrupted relationships, and mental health concerns, although these studies have almost exclusively relied on officer involved shootings or public information as sources of data. To address the dearth of knowledge for SbC cases involving no force or less lethal force, 419 SbC cases from the Los Angeles Police Department Mental Evaluation Unit were analyzed. Results revealed similar frequencies with regard to subject characteristics as in the previous literature; however, substantial differences were seen across incident and outcome characteristics, with a much lower rate of injury and death. Thirteen variables were associated with differing levels of force. The results of the present study paint a more positive picture of SbC outcomes for police and subjects alike.

A Decade of Police Use of Deadly Force Research (2011–2020)

“…Beyond studies centered on examining potential race or ethnicity effects, researchers have also looked at a host of additional factors. Scholars have found that in police-citizen encounters in which a subject is armed with a gun or weapon and an officer is injured, the likelihood of officer-involved shootings (Davies, 2017; Jordan et al, 2020; Morgan et al, 2020; Taylor, 2020; Wheeler et al, 2018; Worrall et al, 2018), the number of shots fired by the police officer (White & Klinger, 2012), and the lethality of an officer-involved shooting (Fridel et al, 2020; Jennings et al, 2020; Johnson et al, 2019), all significantly increase. Researchers have also found a significant positive association between officer-involved shootings and police officers with prior police misconduct or citizen complaints (Kargin, 2016; Ridgeway, 2016; Worrall et al, 2018; Zhao & Papachristos, 2020), police militarization (Lawson, 2019), levels of household gun ownership (Hemenway et al, 2019), mental illness (DeGue et al, 2016; Lord, 2014), and Western states (Helms & Costanza, 2020; Johnson, 2013; Willits & Nowacki, 2014).…”