The incidents below are real. The names of the officers are real. They share their experiences (unedited) to offer the view behind the badge of a suicide by cop incident.

One of the standard questions asked by any law enforcement agency is , "Could you shoot somebody if you had to?" That's one of the most absurd questions I've ever heard. I guess they want to hear that you can, but that's such bullshit because there's not one cop out there that can answer that question until it happens. I've had two righteous times when I could've shot someone, but I didn't. Nobody really has the answer to that question until that moment.

I was at the end of my shift when I answered a call where a man named Floyd was in his house and wanted to kill himself. He was going through a divorce and was drinking too much and it all added up. We get there and set up a perimeter around the n\house. Normally these things go real easy but this call was a classic example of why you shouldn't be so lax in the job.

We had communications call him to ask him to come to the front door. I'm behind a car that is almost directly in front of the house, just the width of the yard separates us from the front door. Floyd makes a verbal contact with me so I'm the first one to talk to him. We talked back and forth for about 45 seconds. Normally, we have them step out then everybody comes up from different angles and we take him down. It's real simple. We do it all the time. But this time he's at the door with a gun in his hand. After this 45 seconds, Floyd goes back in the house and closes the door. A few minutes later he goes back inside and up to the second floor. It's pretty dark and he's talking to me through an upstairs window so he can't really see me but he knows where I'm standing. After a few minutes of this, I decided to move over to the side of the house where my partner was. No sooner had I moved than I heard KABOOM! He actually shot at where I had been standing thinking that I was still standing there.

I looked at my partner and we just started bustin' up. I don't know why we were standing there laughing. Now of course we realize that things are a lot more serious than we thought. After a few more minutes he starts randomly shooting out the window then we hear him pop some caps off inside the house. Thinking he may have shot himself in the head, my partner and I decided to go inside instead of waiting for the SWAT team. With our backs against the wall, we walked toward the front of the house. He popped a couple of caps down at our feet and we ran back behind the house. That's when we realized that he wasn't dead.

The Critical Incident Negotiations Team finally arrived and attempted to talk him out. They were able to do that but I neglected to tell the officer's on the perimeter. So Floyd comes out again and this time he's got a shotgun in his mouth. As he sees me, Floyd moves the shotgun to his head and we start talking again. He tells me that he doesn't have a problem with me personally but rather with our administration. So I told Floyd that I don't like them either. I included that in the report nobody realized that I really was telling the truth.

In my peripheral vision I could see that my partner had gone in through the back of the house. We didn't have time to make a game plan because we weren't expecting Floyd to come out. I tried to get Floyd to focus on me so he wouldn't notice my partner coming in the back. Parked between Floyd and I is this little MG. At the time it seemed really big to me. As he approaches me I tell him that he's come far enough but he steps over to the other side of the car anyway. So now there's about ten feet between Floyd and I with only this little MG for cover. For some reason I felt safe. I realized after it was all over that that was pretty stupid.

Floyd and I stood there and talked for six minutes as he's waving the shotgun around. I realize the danger I'm in since he'd already popped a couple of caps at me. I have my gun in my hand when I notice that standing directly behind him is a Sergeant and Lieutenant - directly in my line of fire. That prevented me from shooting when I really could've taken a shot.

Walking back to the front door, Floyd yelled out that there better not be somebody trying to come through the back. I warned my partner and just then Floyd goes back into the house and emerges with a different weapon - this time a German Luger pointed at his temple.

Standing in the driveway with my gun in my hand, Floyd starts walking toward me. I thought he';d stop on the other side of the car like he did before with the shotgun, but instead he walked right up to me. I started yelling, "Floyd that's far enough. Stop there Floyd. That's far enough." So now we're literally toe-to-toe and it scares the hell outtta me. The barrel of my gun is pressed against his stomach and I'm talking my ass off. I couldn't tell you 98% of what I said to him during that four minutes. It got to the point where I was thinking I was dying that morning. I'm not gonna go home or even see my kids again. This guy is just going to kill me and it would be so fast I wouldn't even be able to react.

I had tunnel vision of his face and gun. When I finally noticed my partner, I could see that he didn't have his gun out so I knew I couldn't put mine away. After a while I told Floyd to go back into his house because nothing was working. At one point I even thought to myself that I wished Floyd would kill himself. I just didn't care anymore. So I thought, go ahead Floyd. Get your brains and blood all over me. I just want to go home and see my kids.

I said something to him, he didn't' hear me and as he leaned forward, he moved the barrel of his gun off his temple and that's why my partner and I both jumped him. As we fell, Floyd popped off a round in the air. As we struggled to get the gun away, another round went off. The other officers had run toward us when they saw us take Floyd down and ran back when they heard the first round. They started to run up and again when all of a sudden the second round went off. I'm sure it looked kind of comical like "Simon says come up, stop. Come up stop." I yelled at my partner to get the goddamned gun.

When it was all over with, I looked over at my partner who was leaning up against the car and it hit me what we had just been through, coming so close to death. I felt my feet going out from under me and I knew I had to sit down because I had no energy left. It scared the shit outta me. I was mentally exhausted.

I went to work the next day and I couldn't look at anybody - couldn't talk to them. You start having nightmares, waking up sweating and you want to go to the bathroom and puke. It wasn't until a year later that I was able to talk about the incident in any detail.

That was the longest ten minute call of my life.

I was working the night shift here in Santa Barbara County. I work for the Sheriff's Department out of the Lompoc Sub-Station. Usually we have two, if we are real lucky three deputies working at one time. This night I was working with one of my Santa Ynez Valley Station counterparts. My regular partner was on military leave (Marine Corp Reserve). The partner I was working with was a pretty new guy, probably 2-3 years or so on the job. Of course being a 28 year law enforcement veteran, there aren't very many around that have much more time in this line of work than I do. We also had a Level One Reserved Deputy on duty, so we were really FAT.

We had a run on calls, my partner (the young deputy) had arrested a DUI. Being that he did not have much experience in this area, I was helping him. After we administer the Intoxilyzer I split up and went to handle a loud music call. The Reserve finishing up the tow on the DUI. As I responded to handle the loud music call the reserve deputy got a 415 (disturbance call) with a drunk daughter being involved. I broke away from my call and assisted the reserve deputy with the disturbance call. I ended up arresting the juvenile female for being drunk in public and battery. I had the reserve deputy transport her to the hospital to get medically released for booking, per our booking policy. I went to handle the loud music call and ended up clearing that call. I responded to the Substation and met up with the young deputy, handling the DUI. As I pulled into the parking lot of the substation I saw an elderly man standing by a public telephone booth that is located in front of our station.

The time was approximately midnight. This is not real uncommon because we lock our door at 1700 hours and the public must call for assistance and many times they use the public telephone. I exited my unit and approached the elderly male subject. I asked him if I could render any assistance. He walked toward me and he produced a 2' long Machete. The Machete was in his right hand and had been held down along his right leg, hidden from view. He took the Machete up to a striking position, and from about 10' feet away he stated, "Yes, you can kill me!." I back up and drew my service weapon, an HK 40cal, and from a distance of about 15' feet I started to talk to the old guy. He kept telling me to kill him, but I realized very quickly that he was not making verbal threats directed at me. The only threat was the up raised Machete, which by the way, I looked at as a very viable threat. As luck would have it for the old guy, I am one of the department's Hostage Negotiators and my negotiation instincts went into effect. I put out an emergency call and advised our dispatch of what I had and informed them of my location and that I had him at gun point. My partner immediately joined me (he was inside the station) and I was able to talk the old guy into dropping the Machete.

I must say that I came real close to pulling the trigger, especially at the very beginning. I am glad that my instincts gave way and that I talked the guy down. After interviewing him I found that he was in a lot of pain and the medications he was taking was not helping anymore. He had decided to commit suicide. His first choice was to walk in front of a truck, but he found out real fast that it was not going to be too easy to do that ( he was pretty frail). He had seen us on the DUI stop and the idea of having one of us shoot him came to him and he decided to commit suicide by cop, he just wasn't ready to hurt anyone else doing it. Thank god for that! Any way the metal health people responded and took him away. I just hope that he doesn't try it again, he may not be so lucky the next time. This all took place in no more than 5 minutes or so.

A call comes at 10:25pm and Dee is still finishing her paper work. I take the call so she can finish up in time for the Christmas party at 11:00pm. It amazes me how fate comes in and knocks the breath out of you. Robbie and I take the call and I remark on the way that we are going to have to arrest this guy and we will be late for the party. When we arrive at Kinder St., a white male in his thirties exits the house and states that his uncle has been pointing a gun at him and his family all night and threatening to kill the whole family and himself. He states that he is drunk and has gone to the garage apartment in the back. Rob and I walk down the alley towards the garage and a man comes up behind us and says that the guy in the apartment is his cousin and maybe he can talk to him. I stated that he had a gun and as soon as we secured the scene he could talk to him. We go to the door and I stand on the left side while Rob stands on the right. We take our guns out and I knock on the door with my left hand. At this time I notice that the door has a latch not a door knob. The door is pushed to but not closed. I knock again with my left hand and again get no answer. I then pushed the door open and step inside. The room is well lit and rectangular in size. There is a bed at the end of the room perpendicular to the rectangle. The uncle is laying down with his head towards the left side of the room. As I step further into the room, he sits up on the bed with his feet on the floor. He stares at me for a couple of seconds and I am about to speak when he reaches to his right. As he reaches, I notice on the left side of the bed there is a rifle. He picks up the rifle and I remember thinking I can't believe he is doing this. He grabs the rifle and I bring my gun up and start to back out of the room. He starts to swing the rifle towards me and I tell him drop the gun, drop the gun, drop the gun. He swings the rifle almost to his shoulder and I fire one shot. I didn't hear any thing but I recall the shock I felt as the gun went off. I backed out of the doorway and stood to the left as rob was again on the right. I did a quick peek into the room and remember feeling that the last thing I wanted to do was go back into that room. I reentered the room with my gun trained on Mr. Knuckles. He was still on the bed leaning to the right on his right elbow. The rifle was still in his right hand with his finger still on the trigger. As I approached him I again told him to drop the gun, drop the gun. I soon got close enough to grab the rifle and I handed it to Rob and told him to clear it. I handcuffed Mr. Knuckles and flipped him back over so he was facing me. I wondered if I had hit him and looked at Rob and asked him if I had hit him. Rob said he didn't know. I stared at his chest and stomach and could not see any wound. I remember feeling relieved that I had shot at this man and missed him.  The threat was over and nobody got hurt. I started flipping through his layers of clothing and still couldn't see anything. I got down to his tee shirt and saw a small hole just below his chest close to the middle. I turned to Rob and told him to holler at headquarters. Tell them that shots have been fired, suspect down, we need back up, first responders and paramedics. At this time the man in the alley started yelling to let him come into the room and pray with Frankie. I knew from training that when you are in charge of a crime scene you are not to let anyone into the area. I also knew that Mr. Knuckles was hit in a bad spot and there was a good chance that he would die. I told Rob to search him. He did and stated that he was clear. I told Rob to let him in. I took the handcuffs off Mr. Knuckles and held his left hand while his cousin held his right hand. We prayed. After we said amen, I told his cousin to leave. Mr. Knuckles then looked at me and said "why did you shoot me?" I told you to drop the gun. "I wouldn't have shot you! " How was I supposed to know that? 

The man I killed that night pointed an unloaded 30.06 at my partner and I. Why? Who knows! I do know that there is hell on earth and I have been there. The great part is that through this nightmare I have met some extraordinary people who truly care about police officers and the struggles we face. I thank these people, officers and civilians alike, for their love and support. God bless!