A man walked into a police station in New York City and asked officers to kill him.
The 26-year-old man walked in with a long knife in his hand, as surveillance video posted to Twitter by the Sergeants Benevolent Association shows.
The man stands near the entrance casually holding the weapon, while civilians waiting in the lobby started to move away from him, and more police officers rush into the scene and draw their guns.
Man walks into Police Precinct and pulls a knife. Is the city really this far gone? Great job once again by NYPD Cops. pic.twitter.com/KV0PgLpjmg
— SBA (@SBANYPD) July 28, 2019
The man still stands casually and calmly, without raising the weapon or going anywhere, until officers fire tasers which cause him to drop to the floor.
The man entered the station asking officers to kill him, police sources told the New York Post.
“The government is [expletive] me… I want you to shoot me,” the man said in Spanish.
After officers subdue the man, he asks them why his suicide attempt did not work.
“Why didn’t you shoot me… I’m too chicken to kill myself,” the man said, police sources told the Post.
After he was arrested, he was brought to a hospital for minor injuries. He was not charged with a crime. He suffers from bipolar disorder, according to Post’s source.
Our officers never know what kind of danger the day will bring.
Luckily, officers like the ones in the @NYPD75Pct are trained to make split-second decisions during life threatening situations, protecting themselves and the communities they serve. pic.twitter.com/XvmXJd0C19
— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) July 29, 2019
Suicide by Cop
In May, a man walked into another NYPD station wearing a dark ski mask. In his hand were at least a couple knives, along with a plastic bag filled with items, and he was wearing a backpack, according to video obtained by the New York Post.
The man was arrested, charged with threatening officers, and then quickly released without bail back into public life, despite having an extensive criminal record.
Sources told the Post that the man’s actions seemed like an attempted “suicide by cop.”
Teenage Girl Walks Towards Police With Knife
Also in May, a 17-year-old girl was shot three times by a police officer in California after she refused to drop a knife she was holding and started to walk towards the officer with it.
The Oxnard Police Department released bodycam footage of the incident to the public.
When the officer first arrives on the scene, he asks the girl to walk over to him. Then he asks why someone called to say she had a knife, at which point she reaches to take it out of her pants.
“Don’t reach for the knife. Sit right here on the curb,” the officer can be heard saying.
“Why? What happens if I reach for it?” the girl asked.
“Then something bad is going to happen,” the officer responded.
The girl then pulled the knife all the way out, and the officer backed up, but she refused to listen to his commands to drop the knife, according to the video. She continued towards him and started to run at him. He then shot three times.
The Oxnard Police news release said the girl was at a hospital in critical but stable condition.
Pacific Standard reported that the term “suicide by cop” is believed to have been invented in the 1980s by a former psychologist at the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office. As police started to analyze police shootings with this new terminology in mind, they noticed the trend of “suicide by cop” incidents had risen.
