ABSTRACT
Clinton Van Zandt noted that FBI statistics indicate that between 1981 and 1990, a 10-year period, 3.7 million assaults occurred on police officers, and some 617 thousand individuals were identified in these assaults. The use of deadly force by police officers has been the subject of much concern to policy makers and to the public. A justifiable homicide is an intentional killing either commanded or authorized by the law. One class of justifiable homicides is those in which a police officer kills a suspect or offender. In many circumstances, the decision to employ deadly force, even to the point of killing the suspect, is judged, after investigation, to have been justified. Friends and relatives of deceased suspects often accuse the police officers involved in incidents of suicide-by-cop and where suspects commit suicide of using unjustified deadly force.
