Suicide By Cop

It's been a while since I posted. I just got back from a conference... 91 licensed P.I.'s all in one place... talking about things related to the business of Private Investigation.

We P.I.'s are, by nature and avocation, solitary creatures. Put us all in one room with the best in the business ...teaching, speaking, sharing.... and you can't help but be a sponge and soak it all in. There is great pleasure in learning, particularly from the best of the best.

When it was over, a small group of us splintered off before heading home. We caught a quick happy hour before parting ways: sharing backgrounds, swapping stories, discussing cases.... feeling comfortable, maybe even "normal," in the company of those who walk in the same moccasins I do.

And so, the topic of this blog came up. One of the people with us was "Lil," the subject of my last blog. The previous post about Lil and Ed wasn't a particularly meaningful post in terms of lessons learned, helpful advice or investigative technique.

We talked about the blog, she told the others about the post and we we laughed again, all of us, at how tough we can be and what wooses P.I.'s are when threatened by a flu bug named after a pig.

As we discussed how the rest of our Saturday night would play out, I said what I really wanted to to was catch the next ferry out and write a blog. The writing I said, is like a hunger, a craving that must be fed.
That led to to a discussion of what I would blog about.
After all, my brain was somewhat weary, the hour late. The group suggested I blog about our evening, or one of the tales we were telling. The laughter was rich, deep and resonant.

"I already know what I want to write about," I declared. "Suicide by Cop."

"Too serious" I recall someone saying.
I explained this was a story that has been with me for years.
One of our table-mates was former cop turned P.I.
He understood, I think, the need to sometimes release the tension in a way other than humor. Often, the telling of a darker truth can be liberating.

And that is the story I will tell tonight.
I have never written about it. Yet this story, this case is real.
It was the first time I realized some people who want to commit suicide really do choose to have others take them out rather than doing it themselves.
And some people choose to commit suicide by cop.

Yet, as so often happens in life, things seldom go down the way you'd expect.
So here's what went upside down.

I was told by a Seattle woman who tried to hire me, that her brother was in jail in Los Angeles for a second time.
She told me the first time he was broke, had taken to robbing banks and got caught.

He was sent to prison and he wasn't happy about it. He said "jail sucked big-time" and he had no choice but to "do his time."
Though he did say to anyone who'd listen, he would never stay in prison again.
If he was arrested, he said, he'd eat a plastic fork in jail which he was fairly certain would kill him.
That was a concept that was both original and hard for me to wrap my head around.

When he was released from prison, he was sent to live with my prospective client's older sister, in Los Angeles.
He repeated the story about eating the plastic fork if he was arrested to a number of witnesses because he said he would prefer suicide rather than staying in prison.

And it wasn't long before he repeated his prior past habit of bank robbing.
He wasn't very good at it.
While he pointed a gun at the teller, the alarm was set off while he was in the bank.

As he headed out out of the final bank he was ever to rob, the bank was surrounded by police. He walked out the front door, lifted his gun and allegedly aimed it at a police officer. He was shot four times and went down.

Amazingly enough, he lived.
There was triage, an airlift and a very long hospital stay.
End result, he was a paralyzed from the waist down. At 24, his sister told me, he would waste his life away in prison in a wheelchair.

However, someone in the family got the brilliant idea that it wasn't his fault he was stuck in the position. It was the fault of the police. They paralyzed him and wanted to to file a lawsuit against the police, the City of Los Angeles, , whoever, for civil damages. The family wanted me to work the case.

I passed.

Then three years passed before I saw his sister again.

To my complete and total amazement, he won a $9 million judgement.

I still haven't figured that one out. Mainly because I don't care to.
Some things not worth fathoming... are still worth writing about.