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‘Suicide by cop’ only recently understood.
Published November 20, 2003
A police officer is no different than a rope, a knife or a bottle of poison to some suicidal subjects.
Witnesses and police have said it is possible that Willie Evon Hundt Jr. had a death wish when he led Freeport, Clute and Oyster Creek police on a high-speed chase and fired a shotgun at them Sunday. Three officers fired back, and Hundt died that night in a Houston hospital.
His motive seemed unclear. During the robbery that set off the chase, Hundt, 43, gave his name to those in the store and made a point not to take all the money in the store, only a handful, police said. When he left, he greeted an incoming customer and stopped for a traffic light as he drove away, witnesses said.
“It’s what you call abnormally abnormal,” said Barry Perrou, a retired veteran of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department who holds a doctorate in clinical psychology.
“It’s already abnormal for somebody to rob a store and take money that doesn’t belong to them,” Perrou said. “However, he didn’t take a lot of money. A typical robber would want it all.”
The store owner estimated Hundt escaped with about $500, much of which he jettisoned during the chase.
Perrou has researched extensively what has become known as “suicide by cop.” While committing a crime with the intent of being killed by police is not new, it only recently has been studied and understood, he said.
If Hundt’s intentions were to die, it will be Brazoria County’s first case of suicide by cop, District Attorney Jeri Yenne said. It was only a matter of time before it happened, she said.
“I knew we weren’t going to be immune from this,” Yenne said.
About 10 to 12 percent of police-involved deaths are suicides by cop, said Rebecca Stincelli, a former field advocate with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department in California who has written the book “Suicide by Cop.”
They tend to be more common in urban areas only because of the higher population concentration, Stincelli said. For example, about 28 percent of those killed by Los Angeles County officers want to die, Perrou said.
Reasons for the choice vary but are little different than of those who commit suicide using more conventional methods, Perrou said. Problems at work, family discord and injured egos are often to blame, he said.
“The justification for suicide is usually the logic that life is not fair,” Perrou said. “These things are not typically done out of acts of love.”
They’re typically not a cry for attention, either, unless the culprit is trying to bring attention to a specific issue, like the failure of a certain social service, Perrou said.
Whatever motivates the culprit, suicides by cop all have one thing in common, Stincelli said. They always haunt the officers who fired the fatal shots. Two of the officers who shot at Hundt were from the Freeport Police Department and the other was from the Oyster Creek Police Department.
“The public is stuck in this Hollywood idea that cops just love shoot-’em-ups,” Stincelli said. “It’s so incorrect. I can tell you they’re really devastated.”
The trauma is worse for the officers after suicides by cop than after killing a criminal whose primary intention was to hurt police and the public, not just himself, Perrou said. They realize the one who died did not really want to kill them, he said.
As a result, the officers often show signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, like sleeplessness, night sweats and avoiding the area where the shooting occurred, he said. They also might feel anger toward the dead, Stincelli said.
“Many of the symptoms that a police officer feels about being used by a subject are very similar to a woman who has been raped,” Perrou said.
To make matters worse, the officers usually are scrutinized by the media and their own departments after the death, Stincelli said. Many of them end up leaving the profession, she said.
A support network helps, said Stincelli, and she offers one through her Web site, www.suicidebycop.com. The groups will maintain the officers’ confidentiality, she said. Officers involved in Hundt’s shooting have been relieved of duty so they can undergo counseling, police have said.
What’s most important, Stincelli said, is that someone is there to listen to and support the officers, she said.
“Don’t rush to judgment about the officers involved,” Stincelli said. “That’s the cruelest mistake people can make. Just be available to listen.
“This isn’t like you hit a cat when you drove home from work.”
Michael Baker is a reporter for The Facts. Contact him at (979) 237-0150.
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