>surely. you know, i was vegging out in front the tube and saw some report
>about the rise in the numbers of "suicide by cop." sorry, i was vegging so
>i have no idea what the hell i was watching, something that came on after
>the news.... anyway, the report claimed that more and more people are
>commiting suicide by engaging in staged confrontations with the cops in
>order to get shot. apparently, these folks can't bear to swallow some
>pills or blow their head off, so they get into confrontations armed with
>knives, empty guns, toy guns, etc. some supposedly leave suicide notes
>apologizing to the cop who had to kill them. i mean, i rilly rilly don't
>like conspiracy theories of the media, but good god i have to believe that
>this particular 'report' was planted by some p.r. team for some national
>assoc of police officers in order to fight the police brutality scandals of
>late.
Nexis has 54 stories on "suicide by cop" in its newspaper database over the last 10 years. It's a genuine trend. Even British and Canadian papers have even done stories on it (as a phenemenon in the US). Of course factoids become trends when journalists read other journalists on Nexis.
Doug