If a person were about to commit suicide, what would be the purpose of a police officer pointing a gun at the person to stop him?

1. If you are about to commit suicide by using a firearm, the police officer would shoot you if she/he believed her/himself to be in danger from you changing your mind and threatening her/him instead.

2. If you are about to commit suicide by using a firearm, the police officer would shoot you if she/he believed that other people (bystanders or hostages) were in danger from you changing your mind and threatening them instead.

3. Even in these cases, the police officer would usually try to either disarm you or disable you, not kill you, which is the last recourse.

4. The police want all crisis situations to end with the fewest casualties and the least possible damage all around. If they know that it is a suicide scenario, they have training in how to de-fuse the situation and they have back-up personnel to call on who, if time permits, will negotiate and otherwise de-escalate the tension.

5. Everyone involved would hope and pray that the potential suicide will be open to changing his/her mind and seeking professional help to overcome whatever torment led to the suicide decision in the first place.

Officers who are involved in what are termed 'police assisted suicides' are not immune to feelings of guilt afterwards even if they had no choice but to protect themselves or others. The family left behind is also tormented by feelings of guilt and this is not helped by the intensive police investigations that always follow police fatalities. Insurance claims are often denied in suicides, so the family is doubly burdened.

Prosecutions for attempted suicides are rare; the preferred resolution is professional intervention by medical personnel. So the fact that 'suicide is illegal' should not play much of a role in anyone's decision-making.

Habit.

Maybe I'm being a bit too literal here. But police officers are people too and can get stuck in habitual conditioning.

Hope this helps.

It's been dubbed 'death by policeman'. All the person has to do is point the gun in the direction of a police officer and instantly and technically it is no longer suicide. Sad, but true.

ummm, pointing your service revolver at a suicidal person, huh? if the "patient" were standing on a ledge with no observable weapons, then guns shouldn't be drawn. if, on the other hand, the "patient" holds a knife at his own throat, the officer likely doesn't feel threat from that weapon but s/he wants to control the situation. in the end, a shot to the leg would be preferable than death. if the "patient" also had another piece of equipment, not a weapon, that could endanger others - the switch to a bomb, the keyboard that sends a national secret to north korea... if the "patient" had a gun pointed at his own head, in a second's time, he could re-aim that weapon at another person, including the officer, so, for safety's sake, s/he'd need to point the service revolver in order to control the situation. officer-assisted suicide is a goal of some "patients" but it is not a purpose for the officer to point a gun at the person. i once had a "patient" who was hanging himself. immediately after i cut him down, he began punching me. it happens and officers must protect themselves and others.

Much has been written on the subject of police assisted suicide. In many instances the intent of the individual is unknown. There was a famous case of an individual leading the police on a chase and then when cornered, he pointed a gun at the officers, who shot and killed him. It turned out to be a toy gun. Only then did the officers realize the individual's intent. It is a problem which has complex psychological components.

Good question. actually, in most states, its a violation of the law to commit suicide. the psychological effect of an officer pointing his weapon at a suicidal person, could have a very effective reaction. a person wanting to commit suicide may not want to commit suicide, at all. his actions may be strictly for attention. not meaning to really want to commit suicide and seeing an officer pointing his weapon, may just be a deterent to stop a non-suicidal person. many factors are involved in dealing with a suicidal person. the officer has to make split second decisions, based on experience, the law, and the situation at hand. as a matter of information...its a violation of law to commit suicide for this reason: so the police can arrest the person, without a warrant, to be psychologically evaluated.

People wanting to commit suicide really screws up a policeman’s day. The big problem as mentioned is if they shot you, you win. Things like pepper spray and stun grenades are used to hopefully distract the person long enough to remove the firearm from the potential suicide victim. The other is very long negotiations. These are planned to wear the person down. I can't see much point in me going into ways to overcome these approaches, because I don't want to see anyone commit suicide either.

the police officer would only be pointing a gun at you if yer about to take someone with you to the other side

or if yer threat to kill yerself is about to do harm to surrounding persons

"dont do it or ill shoot you"

if a person has already shot their ownself how long does it take for a police officer to go in to see how bad the person is or do they wait long enough for that person to die, befor they go in my son shot his self in the jaw bone and layed for 3 hrs before the cops went in to check on him is this how the officers should had reacted

1) It could stop that person to commit suicide the way the person would like to do it. If the person makes some steps in the realization of their suicide, the person would be wounded: after that, she would be unable to kill themselves the way they intended.

This applies also to suicide combined with murder. In this case the person could also be shot to minimize the number of victims, in the case of an actual threat.


2) A person could provoke a police officer to shoot them:
"Suicide by cop is a suicide method in which a suicidal deliberately acts in a threatening way, with the goal of provoking a lethal response from a law enforcement officer, such as being shot to death."

"The idea of committing suicide in this manner is based on trained procedures of law enforcement officers, specifically the policy on the use of deadly force. In jurisdictions where officials are readily capable of deadly force (often by being armed with firearms), there are usually set circumstances where they will predictably use deadly force against a threat to themselves or others. This form of suicide functions by exploiting this trained reaction. The most common scenario is pointing a firearm at a police officer or an innocent person, which would reasonably provoke an officer to fire on them in defense. However, many variants exist; for example, attacking with a knife or other hand weapon, trying to run an officer or other person over with a car, or trying to trigger a (presumed) explosive device.

This entire concept hinges on the person's state of mind, and their desire to end their own life, which can be difficult to determine post mortem. Some cases are obvious, such as pointing an unloaded or non-functioning gun (such as a toy gun or starter's pistol) at officers, or the presence of a suicide note."
Source and further information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_by_cop