If you want to end it all, nip off quietly by yourself and do it, okay? Don't get in a big shouting match with your spouse about how much life sucks and how badly you want to kill yourself, and then storm out of the house with your loaded gat, because your spouse is going to call the cops, and they're gonna show up and you're gonna point your heater at them...
...and they're just going to wing you, and now you're in the hospital with a bullet hole in you and a slam-dunk felony conviction just waiting for them to disconnect all the IV tubing. Good work, Sparky. You're still alive, your life is screwed up far worse than it was before, and you've generated a crap ton of annoyance and paperwork for a whole bunch of other people whose lives would have been much better if you had just gone into the basement and kicked a stool over with an extension cord around your neck. Jerk.
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Have you ever seen the emotional damage that results from a person that commits suicide quietly? Have you ever ministered to someone with those scars?
Those are foolish words.
Tam,
I couldn't have said it better myself. Like all cops, I HATE these type of calls because usually they result from some jerk who doesn't have the cajones to do it himself, so he resorts to the old "I'll just point my gun at the cops and they'll do it for me" plan.
We intervene to try to save somebody's life and the thanks we get when things go like they did in Indy is a buttload of paperwork and some time off whether we want it or not (not to mention having investigators crawling up your ass trying to second guess everything you did right up to and including busting that cap).
Hypnagogue,
Lighten up, it's called being facetious.
I have had to deal with the aftermath for friends and family of successful suicides done quietly. I have also had to deal with the aftermath of both successful and unsuccessful (but nearly so) suicides by cop. The former is devastating for those close to the deceased. The latter drags a whole bunch of other people in, to share in all the fun.
On top of that, the situation is still devastating for those close to the deceased, or in cases like the one linked to, the nearly deceased, but now hospitalized and soon to be jailed and imprisoned.
"...kicked a stool over with an extension cord around your neck. Jerk." (heh).
And those who truly desire the Great Escape do exactly that or an equally effective equivalant. Hard on the home folks, of course, and still a pretty chickenshit thing to do even if its easier on strangers and the system.
Others, I'm not so sure they want anything more than attention at any cost, and they don't get any of that with a quick and private offing; usually not even a newspaper mention, in respect of the surviviors. Plus, then they're actually, you know, dead.
There are actually quite a few conditions that could lead a person to act out in this way without any direct thought to getting killed themselves or the damage and cost they inflict on others. And of course an alcoholic is capable of anything at any time. Some could probably be treated to overcome their issues and become good and productive citizens/spouses/parents; I've witnessed the change in a few people from destructive to self and others, to nominally normal after some treatment and stabilizing influences were introduced.
OTOH, if I'm the cop and the events play out as here, or as in that haunting prop gun post of RDB's that you directed us to...bitch dies. And then yet another victim is added (the cop who killed a guy who might have been redeemable because there is no choice).
I don't know what the answer is to the "I don't really wanna die, I just want drama/attention/help" thing, but I'm afraid I would shoot way too many guys, possibly to include some of those second guessers Montie mentioned; just one reason why I couldn't do that job.
AT
Or, maybe Indy has instituted the Shoot to Ill Bill from Bloombergia? Good shootin', Tex. But stooopid. AT
Hypnagogue: I still support the right to self terminate. Emphasis on "self". If you don't own your own life who does?
It's still bloody stupid, mind you ...
AT,
I'd imagine that the officer was aiming center-mass as he was trained and the perp got lucky. Or unlucky, as the case may be.
From several close up and personal observations, it does not make much difference to the survivors whether the departed went quietly or noisily. There is far more grief mixed with guilt after a suicide than any sane person wants to deal with.
On the other hand, if you must you must. Just please do not force someone else to do it for you. Suicide by cop is a terrible way to go. Suicide by train is worse. And the very worst is to step off the shoulder into the grille of a passing 18 wheeler.
Just because you have grief is no reason to inflict it on anyone else.
Oh yeah - do leave your survivors an "I love you but I must go now" note. Because they don't deserve the grief, and there is no point in making it worse.
Stranger
Hypnagogue - I don't think Tam is advocating that non-suicidal people should kill themselves. I think the point is, that IF you're going to kill yourself, don't do it in a way that creates extra victims, like the police officer in this case.
Either way, anyone close to the suicide is going to be hurt. But the way this jerkwad tried it, he's spreading the hurt around to additional people who otherwise would not have been involved.
Offing yourself in a dramatic, loud, public way doesn't save the family any hurt.
Now Tam, you're not showing enough compassion for the suicidal. Remember: the .gov is responsible for us. Surely that highly-trained peace officer shot only to wound!
(I've got a lot more than 1,100 words coming, too.)
Jeeze, why not go out and get some SSRI's? Docs hand the stuff out like tic-tacs these days and for the most part it works. I've seen some people I know go from weeping over dead critters in the road to more or less back to their old normal productive selves in few weeks. And screw the holier than thou types that say you should tough it out, that's like saying you should blow off insulin for diabetes, or bite on a stick for major surgery.
WV=istabil (or not!)
Craziest story I ever heard was a guy finally gets fed up with his wife and instead of just leaving the crazy @!@$*@$&(*!!, he plants himself in a rocking chair facing the front door and blows his brains out, so that's the first thing she sees when she comes home from work that night.
I knew her in high school. I haven't decided if she deserved it. I doubt he did.
I agree with Tam whole-heartedly. If you are going to off yourself at least do it in a way that doesn't involve others (or leave bloody streaks and chunks of that's-not-hamburger). Thank God I have never hit anyone while driving a train (I'm an engineer), but most of my co-workers have at some point, either a pedestrian, car. or outright suicide. I've know one guy that was just emotionally shattered by someone using him to commit suicide, he could never work over the road again. A teen girl in a nightgown walked in front of his train one night and sat down in the middle of the tracks.
While not as despicable as forcing a cop's hand and making him responsible, putting someone else in the position where they see what is happening but are powerless to either stop or save you is thoughtless and self-centered (though I guess most suicides are when you come down to it). Then you add in the people who park their car on a crossing and wait. Not only are they too chicken to do it themselves, they still want the life insurance to pay up.
:( Didn't mean for this to come off as a rant or to sound jaded and cynical, it just hit close to home.
"I'd imagine that the officer was aiming center-mass as he was trained and the perp got lucky."
Yeah, that was just some of that facetiousity (that a word? it is now) Montie mentioned.
And dear God, let's hope NY style hasn't wormed its way into the midwest, 'cause then it's just a matter of time 'til it spreads on down here to America...:O(
AT
I think Brad Delp had the most polite suicide since Socrates - although my wife would be pissed if I brought a charcoal grill into the house.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/03/16/singers_suicide_note_describes_his_despair/
I still think the best way to commit suicide would be to get into an elevator with someone you really, really don't like, pull out a knife and stab yourself a half-dozen times or so, and then, as your last act before dying, press the handle of the knife into their hand...
Then again, I have been accused of being a sick bastard...
If I were gonna do it, I'd take a big bottle of nitrogen into a small closet, tape the gaps on the door except the one at the top, then crack the valve open. Happy hypoxia.
Taping the cracks inside a car and lighting a charcoal grill is one of the more popular methods in Japan. I think that the most popular is jumping in front of a train.
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