Preventing Suicide by Cop (SBC)
How can we Save Lives Through Improved Policies: SBC as a Neglected Issue for Transformative Reform of Law Enforcement
New for my bib: Jeff Wenninger addresses suicide by cop in a Plain Dealer op-ed! His book, with a chapter on SBC, is coming out in May. Thank you Jeff. Readers, I’m going to have to conclude that I am too biased to address this issue as a reporter. Each time I try to do so, I get upset, and likely couldn’t carry out a professional journalistic interview or even be objective in trying to examine public data. One must know their limitations. I’ll keep up this beat and will do citizen advocacy by showing up again at the Citizen’s Police Commission.
The motivation for launching this beat is to somehow save a life. In the over 700 policy briefs I supervised 2007-2020, I emphasized, try to write a policy brief which could save a life. In Speaking from the Heart, I try to apply that to my own Essays, Beats, and so forth. I’m not ready to write a Speaking from the Heart Essay or op-ed about this, because it is just too far from my social work or sociological expertise. I will, sadly, maintain a beat. Here is my Zotero bibliography: https://tinyurl.com/PreventingSuicideByCop.
My current motivation is that, although it is possible that more and more cities are turning to 411 crisis response lines and away from use of armed officers for mental health response, dangers of suicide by cop remain. I would like to introduce this “beat” by making 3 points.
First, recent training of police officers across the country has reduced the number of uses of deadly force by police, but not the percentage of deaths from police deadly force which involve suicide by cop, and they remain a significant minority. One dissertation in LA has found the rate was approximately 30%.
Second, although I have not updated my bibliographical research to see if there are findings in this regard, it is my observation from reading of instances of SBC that in the past, police would use deadly force with much less provocation. Today, those who are seeking to commit SBC often actually shoot or stab a police officer or bystander in order to produce police use of deadly force. One example of this was the shooting of Cincinnati police officer Sonny Kim June 2015. The tragic death of Jayland Walker had many hallmarks of SBC, but according to Ideastream the final report said there was no such indication. It would appear that one reason police reform advocates rarely address SBC is fear it would leave to blaming the victim. In fact, in Jayland’s death, some argued the police were not responsible because it may have been a “suicide by cop.” True, one might ask why it was necessary to use deadly force to kill a fleeing suspect at all when the police knew the identity of the suspect.
Jayland had apparently fired at officers from his car the previous evening but the chase was discontinued. Police made no effort to visit the home where the car Jayland drove was registered and speak with family of Jayland. The evening he was killed, he left his gun in the car but ran from police and turned back towards them, producing an undue over-response of officers, almost identical to the scenario he had discussed with Dupree, a Sheriff’s deputy who was not involved with the shooting. He had long known Jayland and had taken him to a gun range. The evening he was killed, Jayland had left his wedding ring on the passenger seat of his car. Could nothing have been done to prevent his death?
According to the BCI report itself: “In October 2022, Dupri applied to a be a police officer with the Akron Police Department. It was reported that during Dupri’s interview with Akron Police command staff, Dupri advised, ‘He had had conversations with Jayland when he was in his academy and there was something about questions, Jayland had asked him questions about suicide by cop.”
The report also stated: “Dupri advised investigators that when he was in the police academy in 2019, Jayland had asked him about police tactics. More specifically, Jayland asked Dupri, “How do people get cops to shoot them and stuff like that.” Dupri explained that he discussed with Jayland, “You know show me your hands, you tell somebody to show me their hands, they turn around real quick, you don’t know what they got, you know, so that’s how most people end up getting shot because they don’t listen. All they got to do is just listen. Show me your hands.” Would not the death of Jayland benefit from more in-depth news analysis?
Third, this is now coming close to my profession: social work. More and more social workers are now involved in crisis intervention response. However, the training provided, to my knowledge, does not adequately address the specifics of suicide by cop. I hope to learn more about this.
I do know that the typical Memphis Model of police training touches on it in about one slide. Also, Cleveland decided publicly early in the consent degree process n-o-t to adopt the model of strict de-escalation. I am not confident that subsequent training models address this relevant absence, either in the training of police or the training of non-police responders. I will be looking into that for this beat.
I would like to draw your attention to this piece by Jeff Wenninger in the Columbus Dispatch, on what he feels was the February 2024 suicide by cop of Colin Jennings at the hands of Columbus police.
I am not new to this issue. After becoming active in the social movements that arose to demand justice for Tamir Rice in 2015, a movement I have supported in various ways ever since, I learned of the death by police force of Theodore Johnson, also in 2015. Cleveland.com at first in March 2015 provided a brief account. Police1 also gave a similar brief account as if it all happened in seconds. But Police1 later provided the bodycam footage, and Time magazine later wrote of his death at the hands of police, showing that after the initial shooting at the police officers by Johnson, hitting one officer in the bullet proof vest, police left the house and then returned: “The officers retreat, but a second video shows police again approaching Johnson, who tells them he wants to die. ‘I know you just shot me, but I’m not going to shoot you,’ Muniz told Johnson, who seconds later raises his gun and is shot dead by officers. Later, Cleveland.com covered the decision that the shooting of Theodore Johnston was justified.
Yet ten years and one consent decree later, I am not aware that the region’s police forces have seriously addressed the reality of suicide by cop and what must be done to prevent it. The two incidents I show here reveal that SBC quite often is not like the typical crisis intervention response. Those who attempt and comment SBC are quite often not suffering from major depression, are often not psychotic, and are often not intoxicated or under the influence of drugs. Again, although I am not an expert in this, based on my conversations and readings over the years, I have found the person is often having an “existential crisis” and is extremely anxious about pending consequences such as fear of arrest. The nihilist times in which we are living also may fuel such attempts at SBC (see Jonathan Foile’s Reading Arendt in the Waiting Room.
Nor should every crisis intervention response involve unarmed officers. A good example is how Bratenahl officers recently observed a suicidal man on a bridge, realized he was suicidal, and bravely and rapidly decided to “grab him,” saving his life. Apparently, they had prepared by learning his name.
I would like to share in this introduction my earlier efforts to address this. In 2016, as moderator of the following, I presented this public overview at a workshop at the Cuyahoga County Conference on Social Welfare: Dover, M. A., Terry Kukor (Ph.D.), and CSU BSW Candidate Dan Pacetti, MSW, “From Deadly Force to De-Escalation: Preventing “suicide by cop” and responding to mental health crises,” Workshop #17, Cuyahoga County Conference on Social Welfare, March 2016, Case Western Reserve University. I served as moderator and presenter at this workshop. Again, for the materials, see here.
In 2017, I discussed suicide by cop as part of this presentation: Dover, M. A., Panel Presentation, CSU Cleveland Marshall School of Law, Black Law Student Association Symposium: Black and Blue: Emotional Bruises from Recent Public Police Interactions. Panelist at workshop: “Police interaction with individuals who have mental health issues.” This panel also included CSU Policy Chief Gary Lewis. I presented about my work on suicide by cop; my op-ed and testimony on releasing police policies and procedures, and recent theoretical work on what I call civilianism, namely prejudice, discrimination and hatred towards police, members of the armed forces, and other uniformed personnel. See here for that unpublished work. And see the link to the Zotero database for Public Materials references or presented at the conference workshop, also available directly here on my Dropbox.
There is hope and some heroism to report. Most recently, Woodmere police averted a suicide by cop by the adult son of a Bratenahl family. Now the former Woodmere chief is a prospective member of the Cleveland Police Commission. I met her at one point and have high hopes for the new commissioners. I am grateful for Jan Ridgeway’s previous service.
As to heroism, former Bratenahl Police Officer Pitts and Cleveland Police were pursuing a man holding a 12-inch knife. The man, Jeffery Conrad, refused to drop the knife. He had started to wade into Lake Erie. Conrad said, “So we don’t need to waste any more time, really. So you want me to come at you all? Just make sure you shoot straight, that’s all I ask.” Officer Pitts called it in, saying “I think we have a suicide by cop situation here,” and waved off the Cleveland police. He tasered and arrested Conrad, who was wanted for a felony.
Finally, the Police Executive Research Forum has released Suicide by Cop: Protocol and Training Guide. Will Ohio police forces ensure that their policies and procedures are informed by these guidelines? Will the Cleveland police, whose policies and procedures are often adopted by nearby forces, and will the Community Police Commission, which has in the past ignored my pleas to address this issue, finally do something before another life is lost?