Robert Pickett May Have Attempted Suicide By Cop
LINDA STOUFFER, CNN ANCHOR: Prosecutors say charges could be filed as early as today against the alleged gunman in Wednesday's incident outside the White House. They are considering whether to charge Robert Pickett with assault on a federal officer. That carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. Also under consideration: a lesser charge of illegal possession of a handgun. That carries a maximum five-year sentence. A Secret Service officer shot Pickett in the knee when he refused to drop his gun. The notes Pickett wrote indicate he may have been trying to force officers to kill him. Now, that's a practice known as suicide by cop. CNN's Frank Buckley has more on that.</s>FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This televised police pursuit in southern California: an example of suicide by cop, according to authorities. After three hours of pursuit, the car rolls to a stop, the driver revealing he has a gun.</s>DR. BARRY PERROU, HOSTAGE NEGOTIATOR: And as he gets out, they order him to drop the weapon. He doesn't. He raises it, points it at the officers. And they are forced to use deadly force. They had no option. He cut off all their options.</s>BUCKLEY: Psychologist Barry Perrou was a commander of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department's hostage negotiations unit. The L.A. sheriff's Department provided the data for a report on suicide by cop, published in the "Annals of Emergency Medicine." In it, researchers determined that in 437 officer-involved shootings between 1987 and 1997 in L.A. County, 46 or 10.5 percent were suicide by cop, in which a suicidal person intentionally engages in life-threatening behavior toward police or the public to provoke officers to shoot them.</s>PERROU: And police officers do what? They aim to kill. They shoot to kill. So, it's pretty certain that an officer is a good shot is going to do what he is supposed to do, or she is supposed to do, when they are engaged in a deadly confrontation.</s>BUCKLEY (on camera): The Los Angeles study said suicide by cop is more accurately called law enforcement-forced, -assisted suicide. Because law officers are forced to assist suicidal individuals to carry out their wishes. (voice-over): Oxnard police believe that's what happened here just last month, when they say an armed 17-year-old boy took a girl hostage before he was killed by police.</s>REBECCA STINCELLI, LAW ENFORCEMENT INSTRUCTOR: There are two victims in a suicide by cop situation. One is the suicidal subject and the other is the police officer.</s>BUCKLEY: Law enforcement instructor Rebecca Stincelli has studied suicide by cop for seven years, and maintains a Web site on the subject. She says police officers involved in such incidents are often devastated by the death.</s>STINCELLI: Oftentimes, they react with disbelief, anger, resentment.</s>BUCKLEY: Experts say those who commit suicide by cop, also known as victim-precipitated homicide hope to make a statement, are unable to kill themselves, or may have religious or cultural reasons that prevent them from doing so. What they all have in common is their desire to die at the hands of police. Frank Buckley, CNN, Los Angeles.