By Marc Katz
Dayton Daily News
TROTWOOD, Ohio — A man shot by a Trotwood police officer on Sunday likely was attempting suicide, a department spokesman said on Tuesday.
Captain John Porter said officers spoke with the man who remained at Miami Valley Hospital on Tuesday. He said that conversation and information from other law enforcement agencies has led Trotwood authorities to think the man’s probable intention was to invoke deadly force by the officer, Porter said.
“It’s called, ‘suicide by cop,’ ” Porter said at a Tuesday afternoon press conference.
The information, Porter said, came from contacts with other agencies, “based on some prior arrest history and some things that are going on with this guy. His actions, we believe, this particular action by him, may have been intentional in order to invoke the officer to use deadly force against him.”
Police are withholding the names of the man and the officer who fired on him.
The 40-year-old Trotwood man was hit at least once in the upper torso after the officer told him to take his hands out of his back pockets when he was stopped near the corner of Olive Road and Lorimer Street for jaywalking around 6:30 p.m. Sunday.
That is a high crime area, Porter said, and the officer was in the vicinity on other calls.
In a preliminary report to his superiors, the officer said the man advanced on him by foot and when he wouldn’t stop or show his hands, the officer used his weapon.
When asked why a man would want to invoke deadly force, Porter said, “We’re probably looking at the possibility he could be facing other charges on other cases throughout the county on other activities.”
The FBI definition of an attempted “suicide by cop” is, “an act motivated in whole or in part by the offender’s desire to commit suicide that was intended to result in the death of the offender but did not.”
According to a 2006 study in the Journal of Forensic Science, 36 percent of the more than 700 officer involved shootings nationwide from 1998 to 2006 were a “suicide by cop” situation.
The man, who was critically wounded, underwent surgery at Miami Valley Hospital on Monday.
The officer remains on paid administrative leave.
Today, police expect to release Dash Cam video of the incident, and by the end of the week present their case to the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s office and release names of the man and officer involved.
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