Suicide and Homicide-Suicide Among Police

Antoon A Leenaars, Dale A Lund, Antoon Leenaars, Dale Lund

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9780895033901
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351841474
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Forensic Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The goal of this book is to fully explore what the author refers to as 'the near epidemic levels of suicide and homicide-suicide' among law enforcement officers, and ultimately to offer recommendations and best practices with which to better address the problem.  The book begins by discussing suicide in some depth, for one has to know suicide, unequivocally, to understand a suicidal or homicidal-suicidal officer. Suicide and homicide-suicide are complex, multi-determined events - the result of an interplay of individual, relational, social, cultural and environmental factors. The complexity of causation necessitates a parallel complexity of knowledge. There are at least two avenues to understanding: the nomothetic (general) approach, which deals with generalizations using empirical, statistical and demographic methods or techniques; and the idiographic (specific) approach, which typically involves the intense study of individuals. This book explores both. Attempting to be mindful of the needs of the office on the street, the mental health provider, the administrator, the forensic specialist, and the survivors of these needless tragedies, the belief is that by amalgamating the concerns of a diverse audience, we can meet the challenge of identifying at-risk individuals and situations, and saving lives.

Chapter 1
Suicide

Shakespeare said it so well hundreds of years ago. He knew suicide. There are some 52 suicides in his writings. Moreover, there is the most famous forensic study, Othello, the most documented homicide-suicide in history. Edwin Shneidman’s contributions are no different; he is a grandfather of forensic suicidology—he invented, named, and had others invest in the field. He developed such concepts as psychological autopsy, subintentional death, and postvention. He defined the term, suicide, as follows:

Currently in the Western world, suicide is a conscious act of self-induced annihilation, best understood as a multidimensional malaise in a needful individual who defines an issue for which suicide is perceived as the best solution.

One should reflect on each word and the Gestalt for the individual case and the general (idiographic and nomothetic approaches). Of course, there are many more important theorists; we will meet them in this chapter. There are leading suicidologists to guide us, beyond Shneidman. They are Alfred Adler, Ludwig Binswanger, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, George Kelly, Karl Menninger, Henry Murray, Harry Stack Sullivan, and Gregory Zilboorg. We learn that not only Shakespeare and Shneidman, but all great forensic theorists on suicide believe that although suicide is more, insofar as it is psychology, it stems from the person’s unbearable psychological pain, from personal anguish, perturbation, and pain. Given this central idea, all the rest in this chapter is explication of the details.

Shneidman thought that, “We need to know what we are talking about.” We agree. We believe that we will investigate (and know) major crime scenes, such as suicide, more effectively only when we develop evidence-based (or fact-based) understanding of suicide, whether the general or the unique case in police. (Are they that different?) Indeed, we believe that in the study of forensic (police) issues like suicide, there is a natural progression from conceptualization to understanding, and then to applied practice, whether on the street, the crime scene, or the office of the Psychological Services Section of a police department. This section serves like an introductory course to our topic (we can call it Suicidology Among Police, 101). It consists of a number of sections: definition of suicide; intentional, subintentional and unintentional; suicide facts and myths; attempted suicide; forensic observations; and behavioral clues. We will read some of the most personal documents written—the suicide note. After, we will move to the evaluation of suicide risk, a most difficult of tasks, sometimes lethal, if one miscalculates the risk (such as “suicide by cop”).

The concept of assessment is preferable to that of diagnosis; with police, we do not need only a diagnostic approach (one will be called “Doc Nuts”). There is no one clue, or sign, or evidence. Equally, the search for a singular tool for evidence collection or question is a chimera, a myth. This section reflects today’s science of suicide risk assessment, a disappointing one. It is difficult, and may well be the most difficult that a police officer, clinician, and forensic scientist face. Thus, we will address the question, how do we predict suicide in police? After a free association on the topic of sex differences, we finally present a theory of suicide, the foundation of our forensic work. We learn some commonalities. These are the “threads” of behavior that run through the suicidal person’s life history. We can learn much. There is evidence. There are, in fact, consistent threads in every case of police suicide. It is a survey or outline of suicide. It gives a conspectus: to give a summary of the psychological aspects of suicide in terms of its common and ubiquitous characteristics, with a most rare cross-cultural application.

Suicide is a psychological drama on an interpersonal stage; this is so for police. Suicide can be clinically understood from at least, the following templates or commonalities of the intrapsychic (within the mind) factors: unbearable psychological pain, cognitive constriction (or narrow thinking), indirect expressions (or unconscious processes), emotional disturbances (or psychopathology), and a feeling of being vulnerable (ego). The common interpersonal factors are problematic relationships, rejection-aggression, and a wish to escape. These elements have utility in understanding suicide, as well as predicting and preventing the same. The evidence for the theory is presented. Not only due to the high incidence of police suicide, but also to the keen interest in forensic suicidology, a note on cognitive style and dissembling are presented, the latter being so figural in police. The following question is asked: “How is it that some officers who are on the verge of suicide—and some before murder—can hide or mask their secretly held intentions?” This is called masking or dissembling. (No officer should underestimate this concept.)

Shneidman, among others such as Harry Murray, have explicitly supported the intensive study of a unique case, what Shneidman called a psychological autopsy. Murray’s most important (and his proudest) psychological case (specific) investigation was of the personality of Adolf Hitler; he was an officer with the Office of the Strategic Services (OSS), an intelligence agency of the U.S. federal government. Murray predicted the violence and murders, followed by Hitler’s suicide, a homicide(s)-suicide. We present the unique case of Vince Foster Jr., former-President Bill Clinton’s deputy White House council, who shot himself. The specific (unique) case shows us more of the suicidal mind (and we will meet many such officers). Likewise, on a day-to-day basis, we, officers and forensic specialists, are interested in the unique officer. Our practical question is, How do we assess that officer’s suicide risk? Is he or she suicidal? To what extent was the homicide-suicide predictable and preventable? Murray predicted that Hitler would “die, dragging all of Europe with him into the abyss.” Could it have been prevented? Can an officer’s suicide be predicted or prevented? What safeguards could be in place to reduce the risk of future incidents? These too are aims of this somewhat long chapter and the whole volume: to save lives.

* * * * * *

Introduction

Suicide is a multidimensional event (Leenaars, 1993a, 1999a, 2004; Shneidman, 1973, 1985; Zilboorg, 1937). Suicide and suicidal behavior are multifaceted events. There are biological, psychological, intrapsychic, interpersonal, sociological, cultural, and philosophical elements in the event. Thus, suicide and suicidal behavior cannot be reduced to a single factor. This complexity of causation indicates the necessity of a parallel complexity of knowledge. Indeed, because suicide is a multifaceted problem, it needs to be understood on several different levels at once. This is equally true of homicide (Allen, 1980) and what presents to us too often, homicide-suicide. We will explore these topics, but we will first discuss suicide in some detail. One, unequivocally, has to know suicide to understand a suicidal or suicidal-homicidal officer.

Most frequently, people identify external causes (e.g., ill health, being abandoned by a lover, a demotion) as to why the person killed himself. This view is too simplistic, although often the suicidal person holds that perspective. This is not to suggest that a recent traumatic event (e.g., a divorce, loss of a parent) cannot be identified in many suicides. However, although there are always situational aspects in every suicidal act, they are only one aspect of the complexity, which we hope to demonstrate in this book.

Suicide is a multidimensional malaise (Shneidman, 1985). Suicide is not a sin. Suicide is not a crime. (It has been decriminalized in most of the world.) Suicide, rather, is a state of being, a human malaise. Malaise, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is “a condition of … discomfort … a feeling of uneasiness.” Malaise is PAIN. It is the deepest anguish (angst). There are biological, psychological, intrapsychic, logical, conscious and unconscious, interpersonal, sociological, cultural, and philosophical/existential elements in the suicidal pain, to name a few.

Any element of the malaise is a legitimate avenue to understanding suicide. Studies of serotonin have a place. Studies of police culture have a place. Studies of the effect of gun control have a place. In fact, we oppose any reductionistic model in understating suicide. Suicide is a multifaceted event and is open to study by multiple disciplines; herein we offer a forensic psychological/psychiatric perspective. Let us begin with Shneidman’s (1985) arboreal image to understand suicide. He wrote:

An individual’s biochemical states, for instance, are the roots. An individual’s method of suicide, the contents of the suicide note, the calculated effects on the survivors and so on, are the branching limbs, the flawed fruit, and the camouflaging leaves. But the psychological component, the problem solving choice, the best solution of the perceived problem, is the main “trunk.” (pp. 202–203)

From a psychological point of view, we would like to offer a few observations on the question, “why?”

Definition of Suicide

Understanding begins with definition. Briefly defined, suicide is the human act of self-inflicted, self-intentioned cessation (Shneidman, 1973). Suicide is not a disease (although there are many who think so); it is not a biological anomaly (although biological factors may play a role in some suicides); it is not an immorality (although it has often been treated as such); and it is not a crime in the United States, Canada, and most countries around the world (although it was for centuries).

Suicide may today be defined differently depending on the purpose of the definition—medical, legal, administrative, and so on. In the United States and Canada (and most of the countries reporting to the World Health Organization [WHO]), suicide is defined (by a medical examiner or coroner) as one of the four possible modes of death. An acronym for the four modes of death is NASH: natural, accidental, suicidal, and homicidal. This fourfold classification of all deaths has its problems. The major deficiency is that it treats the human being in a Cartesian fashion, namely as a biological machine, rather than appropriately treating her as a motivated, intentional, biopsychosocial organism; that is, it obscures the individual’s intentions in relation to her own cessation and, further, completely neglects the contemporary concepts of psychodynamic psychology regarding intention, including unconscious motivation.

The topic of the definition of suicide was the focus of an entire book by Shneidman (1985). Definition of Suicide can be seen as a necessary step to more effective understanding and prevention of suicide. In the book, Shneidman (1985) argued that we desperately need a clarification of the definitions of suicide—definitions that can be applied to needful persons. He defined suicide as:

Currently in the Western world, suicide is a conscious act of self-induced annihilation, best understood as a multidimensional malaise in a needful individual who defines an issue for which the suicide is perceived as the best solution. (p. 203)

We will be using Shneidman’s definition here.

The two giants in the field of suicidal theorizing at the turn of the 20th century were Emile Durkheim and Sigmund Freud. Durkheim, in Suicide (1897/1951), focused on society’s inimical effects on the individual, while Freud, eschewing the notions of either sin or crime, gave suicide back to intentional man, but put the locus of action in man’s unconscious. Since around 1900, a host of psychological theories aside from Freud’s have focused on the individual; for example, those of Alfred Adler, Ludwig Binswanger, Carl G. Jung, George Kelly, Karl Menninger, Henry A. Murray, Edwin Shneidman, Harry Stack Sullivan, and Gregory Zilboorg, to name some of the best known (Leenaars, 1988). These suicidologists have given us a rich history to understand suicide; thus, we will use these suicidologists’ theories to understand suicide in police and homicide-suicide in police.

Intentional, Subintentional, and Unintentional

Freud (1901/1974), Shneidman (1963), Murray (1967), and others have speculated that beyond intentional suicides, there is a vast array of subintentional inimical behaviors. The very lifestyle of some police officers, for example, seems to truncate and demean their life, so that they are as good as dead. In 1901, Freud stated,

It is well known that in the severe cases of psychoneurosis instances of self injury are occasionally found as symptoms and that in such cases suicide can never be ruled out as a possible outcome of the physical conflict … many apparently accidental injuries that happen to such patients are really instances of self-injury. (pp. 178–179)

Freud further notes that such self-destruction is not rare. Often alcoholism, drug addiction, mismanagement of service guns, high-speed car chases, and masochistic behavior can be seen in this light (Farberow, 1980; Murphy, 1992). We, in this volume, will explore the many faces of suicide.

A related concept is “subintentioned death” (Shneidman, 1963). This concept asserts that there are many deaths that are neither clearly suicidal nor clearly accidental or natural. These are deaths in which the decedent played ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Act 5, Scene II: Othello
• CHAPTER 1 Suicide
• CHAPTER 2 Homicide. Suicide: Are They Related?
• CHAPTER 3 Police Suicide: Classical Studies
• CHAPTER 4 Police Suicide: Current Studies
• CHAPTER 5 Homicide-Suicide
• CHAPTER 6 Homicide-Suicide. Police
• CHAPTER 7 Suicide. Homicide-Suicide. Police: Prevention
• CHAPTER 8 Suicide. Homicide-Suicide. Police: Policies & Procedures
• CHAPTER 9 Suicide. Homicide-Suicide. Police: A Public Case
• CHAPTER 10 Recommendations for the Prevention/Intervention/Postvention of Suicide. Homicide-Suicide. Police
• References
• Index