Man Threatens Suicide, Police Kill Him

originally posted by: the owlbear
This one I can relate to and feel lucky to be alive.

I was at the end. Lost my wife, she took my kids that I was the stay at home dad for over 5 years with, took my dogs, a best friend died four months before, I moved across the country for her job nine months prior...it was time...I was going to do it.
My one and only friend here called the cops worried about me after I sounded strange on the phone.

They showed up at my tiny apartment, front and back doors, and broke them down guns drawn, yet they only tazed me until I saw stars and beat me so bad the hospital took poloroids and digital pictures.

I am glad you are still alive bro. Keep on keepin on.

originally posted by: sparky31
not even going to argue with anyone on this post,lets just have a police free world and deal out our own justice,that should be fun.

So, basically, your position is if cops can't do whatever they please with no criticism, oversight, or consequences to their actions, they pick up their toys and go home?

Maybe we WOULD be better off then, because it seems sort of totally unprofessional and chicken#.

a reply to: Domo1

This is the letter I wrote to my state's attorney general in 2010. All names have been changed and location information redacted.

December 26, 2010


XXXXXX XXXXXXXX
Office of the Attorney General
Open Records Division/Open Government Section
P.O. Box XXXXX
XXXXXX, XX XXXXX-XXXX

Dear XX XXXXXXXX,

The City of XXX XXXXXXX is seeking authority to withhold records I’ve requested under the Public Information Act. When making your decision on whether such records should be withheld from me, please consider the following information.

As mentioned in the city’s December 15 letter to your office, my open records request concerns COSA File No. 2010-XXXX, Offense Report Number XXXXXXXX. My involvement in the incident left me traumatized. I in no way wish or intend to file a lawsuit of any kind. If you accept or deny the city’s request to withhold the information, no one will hear from me again on this matter.

All I desire is closure on a personal level. I need closure. I simply want to know what in fact happened so I can rest in peace.

Shortly after midnight on August 18, 2010, I called 911 from my cell phone at my residence in XXXXXX seeking immediate assistance from the XXX XXXXXXX Police Department. My boyfriend, Cole XXXXXXXXX, whom I am no longer with, was most certainly, from my perspective, about to attempt suicide by jumping off the 100-foot cliff next to Hole No. 7 of XXXXXX XX XXXXXXX’s golf course in XXX XXXXXXX.

I had the opportunity to help save Cole’s life in XXXXXX a month prior to this incident, when he attempted suicide the first time. On August 18, immediately upon receipt of Cole's suicide letter by email, I called and told the 9-1-1 dispatcher all of this and did my best to explain where my boyfriend was and what I believed was happening. I was told emergency teams, including a rescue helicopter, were on their way to help Cole, who was alone on the cliff. I then called Cole and remained on the phone with him for approximately 30-45 minutes trying, with all my strength, to convince him to walk away from that cliff and choose life. I strategically did not tell him I had notified police and did not allow for any moments of silence on the telephone as I felt either would cause him to jump.

Near the end of the time period Cole and I were connected by phone, I heard the helicopter and the growing anxiety in my boyfriend’s voice. My goal was to keep him on the phone as long as possible so that a police intervention might occur.

The final minutes of the call haunt me now, as I believe they were in fact Cole’s final minutes on that cliff. During these final minutes: the phone no longer seemed to be in Cole’s hand; an unidentified woman spoke to me, asking me questions about what was occurring on scene (which made no sense to me as my friend’s life was in danger); an unidentified man then came on the phone and proceeded to ask me the same type of questions. I begged him to please not talk to me and please attend to my friend, whose voice I could still hear in the background. He started to reply but I stopped listening to him and tried to listen to what was being said around him. I heard, in detail, words exchanged between Cole and the woman. I then heard the woman say a few more words, followed by a brief silence, before the call ended.

I notified Cole’s mom who lived in the same city as Cole at the time of the incident and with great distress waited for her to tell me whether my ex-boyfriend did or did not end up at the bottom of the cliff adjacent to Six Flags. About an hour later his mom said the lead investigator found him at the bottom of the cliff and his condition was near death.
I am glad Cole survived and his body is recovering well after seven months in the hospital. He doesn’t remember that night on the cliff. I remember it well, but only by sound and not by sight. I only wish to clarify what actually happened in this incident in which I was highly involved.

The City of XXX XXXXXXX requests to withhold the offense report because it states “disclosure would constitute the common-law tort of invasion of privacy through the disclosure of private facts.”

If I should have pursued this information any way other than through the public information act and the Texas Open Records Act, please let me know. I am not an expert on the law.


_______

Very long story short: I will never know what happened up there. Were these people police officers? They did not identify themselves as such. And why oh why oh why were they concerned with speaking to me when I was 180 miles away from the scene that night and unable to physically intervene, which I definitely would have made a priority had I been on scene. Two police officers, I assume, were there on the cliff with my friend, and immediately upon their arrival they seemed most concerned about what I had to say?! All I wanted was the police report so that I could understand the events of that horrible night. I wanted to know what happened up there and why the police were unable or unwilling to intervene when the opportunity was clearly there? I wanted at least a basic explanation of the incident that I heard in its entirety over the telephone. When he was finally able to talk, Cole ultimately said he "fell" off the cliff.

I feel silly reducing this story to what I've said here, but I just wanted to add my support for police body cameras and actual accountability. I'm not even going to say I think they messed up their emergency response that night. Was it unfair of me to ask for their account of the incident atop the cliff? Was it none of my business what happened up there? I have moved on, but the questions still remain.

This is the end result of the sort of training and mental conditioning that every situation demands you immediately "seize control of the situation, by any means necessary" or "you won't go home at the end of your shift" due to "subjects not complying".

Given that mindset, anyone who can't comply just gets blown away, the cops high-five and call it a day. Great job, bravo zulu.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: sparky31
no its common place cause of certain shootings,how many police are shot a year you never hear about just cause they were doing their job?i,m guessing quite alot

It's actually quite few. The numbers have been declining for 30 years and are at record lows, despite the fact that the number of police are at record highs. They're going down massively per capita. In fact for a so called dangerous job, the fatality rate for police officers is among the lowest in the country. By death statistics it is quite literally one of the safest professions out there. You are more likely to die on the job as an office secretary than a police officer. Here's an article on it.
www.washingtonpost.com...

Never in the history of the country has it been safer to be a police officer than right now. They aren't putting their lives on the line, they're putting your life on the line. In fact, being shot or stabbed don't even make the top 3 ways police officers die on the job. The first is being hit by a car during a traffic stop. The second is getting in a traffic accident while driving, the third is having a medical emergency. By the numbers as a delivery driver you are more than 20x as likely to be violently attacked on the job than a police officer is.

The rules of engagement for a police officer are significantly less restrictive than for our soldiers in the middle of active front line war zones. A soldier in Iraq was told they had to visibly see a weapon and must be shot at first. A cop is allowed to kill you based on an unconfirmed suspicious that you have a weapon, and they are allowed to escalate to lethal force before you. In fact their very training says as much. If you take a hostile tone they taze you, if you threaten to punch them they can and will shoot you.

i am kinda off kilter right now, so all i can say is good post and thanks.

Why do people still call the cops when some one is threatening to kill them self's

If some one has a weapon and is threatening to use it and you call the cops, you just signed their death cert.

That sounds harsh, but we see time and time again that it ends up that way.

Cops just need to say they were in fear for their life and it becomes a good shoot.
Add a weapon and they can and will say that all day.

Police to the rescue..

They have OK'ed body cameras in parts of the New York City area and they will be implemented soon.

originally posted by: sparky31 why don,t we just teach the criminal that the gun aint the answer?

in this instance the criminals with guns were wearing uniforms and badges.

originally posted by: RoScoLaz4

originally posted by: sparky31 why don,t we just teach the criminal that the gun aint the answer?

in this instance the criminals with guns were wearing uniforms and badges.

And this is happening way to often to simply put it down to an officer having a bad day....this problem is systemic and whoever wrote the current training manual needs to be bitch slapped straight to hell

America's an absolute joke.

"Land of the free"

ha

If the man was shot on the bed then how was he a threat?

originally posted by: sean
If the man was shot on the bed then how was he a threat?

You don't understand. He might have LOOKED like a suicidally depressed guy in a bed with a knife. But he was actually the most foul, cruel and bad tempered suicidally depressed guy you ever set eyes on! If they hadn't immediately Swiss cheesed him, THIS might have happened...



This YT video accurately depicts what happens when a medieval SWAT team foolishly believes that just because someone LOOKS physically and mentally unable to put up an actual fight, that's the truth. These guys did not Gain Control Of The Situation At All Costs® and consequently did not Go Home At The End of Their Shifts®.

These guys did just the right thing. They shrieked "Drop the knife!" then cut loose with full auto before he could leap from the bed, do a three and a half gainer in mid air, wheel kick the rifles from their hands, yell "Wah!", then rip their throats out with his kung fu grip. That's what WOULD have happened, had they not killed him to death first. If you dispute this, you are a Monday morning quarterback with Blood Literally Dripping From Your Hands™

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: sparky31
no its common place cause of certain shootings,how many police are shot a year you never hear about just cause they were doing their job?i,m guessing quite alot

It's actually quite few. The numbers have been declining for 30 years and are at record lows, despite the fact that the number of police are at record highs. They're going down massively per capita. In fact for a so called dangerous job, the fatality rate for police officers is among the lowest in the country. By death statistics it is quite literally one of the safest professions out there. You are more likely to die on the job as an office secretary than a police officer. Here's an article on it.
www.washingtonpost.com...

Never in the history of the country has it been safer to be a police officer than right now. They aren't putting their lives on the line, they're putting your life on the line. In fact, being shot or stabbed don't even make the top 3 ways police officers die on the job. The first is being hit by a car during a traffic stop. The second is getting in a traffic accident while driving, the third is having a medical emergency. By the numbers as a delivery driver you are more than 20x as likely to be violently attacked on the job than a police officer is.

The rules of engagement for a police officer are significantly less restrictive than for our soldiers in the middle of active front line war zones. A soldier in Iraq was told they had to visibly see a weapon and must be shot at first. A cop is allowed to kill you based on an unconfirmed suspicious that you have a weapon, and they are allowed to escalate to lethal force before you. In fact their very training says as much. If you take a hostile tone they taze you, if you threaten to punch them they can and will shoot you.

Thanks for the felicitous comment and accurate assessment.

We can no longer ignore or excuse the pathology of the "thin blue line".

a reply to: AshOnMyTomatoes
Lets hope the guy had a large life insurance.. Because insurance does not turn out to suicides..

a reply to: Domo1

a reply to: Domo1

Yea, we need to stop calling 911. It's getting to the point where i'm just as much afraid of the cops as i am of thugs. Pretty sad, I think a lot of these guys are just itching to kill people. I wish there was a test you could give them to weed out the psychos.

V

I think the saddest thing is that there are obviously cops out there that want to do a decent job and who are doing a decent job. Cops who are clever enough and have empathy and want to catch the bad guys, BUT they are actually being silenced by the bullies. I have read first hand accounts from those 'good' cops too many times.

What you are left with is the thug cops and the thicko cops running the show, that, plus an obvious lack of non violent situation resolution training, results in idiots shooting...because they learn to shoot when feeling in ANY kind of danger. Carte blanch so to say.

US cops are rotten and those that aren't have no voice or get the sack/forced to resign because their work life would be made hell; [imagine going to your superior to report one of the knuckleheads in your squad for doing wrong...OMG. I don't think you'd get a cake and a handshake for that...].

That is the saddest thing, that the good ones are helpless and have to put up with it all or risk losing the job they love. You need an independent body to investigate cops, one that has nothing to do at all with them and who can be contacted without fear of repercussion otherwise nasty always wins!

absolutely disgusting. i could maybe see shooting first if he had a gun and was waiving that around drunk. but, it was just a god damned knife. come the f*ck on! you shoot someone with an assault rifle for threatening THEMSELVES with a KNIFE?

and then you boast about it by posting some typical wanna be badass tweet about "respecting the gun"? when in actuality he's just a coward hiding behind a badge and a gun.

in my mind there's more screws loose in the cops head than the guy who was suicidal.

body cameras need to be mandatory. it shouldn't even be a debate anymore. it's the only thing i can think of that might make officers think twice before going into, Above The Law mode.

people need to hear and see the police committing these atrocities so the public can be appropriately outraged and the proper repercussions can be enforced. no more of this, our word vs. their word bull$h!te. we need to see the unbiased truth via video recordings.

their has to be some accountability here otherwise the entire law enforcement system is just a complete bull#e racket.

originally posted by: TechniXcality
a reply to: Domo1

there is no conflicting feelings about this, cops a #en murderer and deserves the same sword!

Jesus, are you that ignorant that you just jump to these conclusions--constantly--without having much of a shred of meaningful evidence?

There are many instances that can justify this shooting--you're dealing with a depressed drunk guy armed and on the verge of ending it all anyway, so where's the stretch that he would have done something to make the cops take his life instead?

At least I give credit to the OP for looking at both sides of possibilities, and I agree with the assessment that things probably should have been dealt with differently from the start, but that doesn't change the fact that it's absolutely plausible that this shooting was provoked and justified. But the point that you always need to remember is that we don't know the details yet (assuming we ever will), so to go around and just call LEOs murderers without any proof is immature and ignorant. It's a prefect example of what not to do when reading about these cases.

originally posted by: Sremmos80
Why do people still call the cops when some one is threatening to kill them self's

If some one has a weapon and is threatening to use it and you call the cops, you just signed their death cert.

*sigh* If someone has a weapon and is threatening to use it, you call the cops, they show up with weapons drawn, and that person still acts like a threatening person with a weapon in hand, they signed their death certificate, not the person who called the cops.

Yes, I think cops are underprepared for the mentally unstable and prone to overreactions sometimes, but at the same time, that mental instability combined with a weapon is what makes them such a threat to the LEOs in the first place. There are also stories where the depressed, suicide-threatening individual decides to take out their family before themselves--would you rather that happen instead?

Sure, in a perfect world, the loved one will always talk down the suicidal, they get treatment, and everything is all rainbows and unicorn farts, but this isn't a perfect world--nor does every case of calling the cops on a suicidal person end in their death.

Hyperbole has not place in these discussions.