I watched the video before I posted, and the different viewpoint doesn't change my opinion of anything I said.
Okay.
The thing that cops dislike most about about obvious ?suicide by cop? suspects, is, they?re a little unpredictable.
They?re unpredictable because they?re specifically suicidal - an inarguably not normal state of mind.
In such a situation, how is any cop attempting to de-escalate supposed to be expected to know without a doubt that the poor miserable bastard, at his wit?s end, is really unarmed, and isn?t bent on taking as many cops out with him as he can?
In exactly 28 days, it will be the quarter century anniversary of a day that started out for me like any other day at the time. I was going to do some business, and then head to my bank ? the B of A on Laurel Canyon in North Hollywood, just north of Victory.
Anyways, I got to talking with a business associate, and got started to the bank about a half hour later than I intended to.
As I was about to get onto the Hollywood Freeway north at the Gower on ramp, I witnessed an astonishing sight ? a literal battalion of police cars were whirring passed me onto the on ramp, lights and sirens blazing.
I turned on news radio ? the bank I was heading to was under siege by two heavily armed gunmen, with strategic defense body armor, armed with munitions that would outgun the LAPD.
Anyway, that went onto be the fabled and legendary North Hollywood bank heist attempt of lore, the one that many say the movie ?Heat? was based on. If I had kept on schedule, I guess I probably would have been a hostage.
You probably know there was a massive firefight; the police had to literally upgrade their own arms at a gun shop on Vanowen and Whitsett near the bank. Thanks to whoever or whatever, no police nor civilians were killed; only the perps ? one killed himself walking on a residential side street, I don?t know, maybe he got bored waiting for the cops to get around to taking him out. The other died from wounds inflicted by the cops.
It was obvious they knew there was no chance they were going to get out alive. It was inarguably the most spectacular event of suicide by cop to date.
When a poor unfortunate bastard gets to the place of suicide by cop ? the cops can?t take any chances ? who knows what a person in that state of mind will do to police or civilian bystanders?
