War Torn Soldiers

http://www.syracuse.com/articles/news/index.ssf?/base/news-11/1186304488243900.xml&coll=1&thispage=1


They were closing out one of those long, hot summer weekends, working late on a Sunday, almost done. At 11:36 p.m., Officer Douglas Pennock noticed movement in the window outside the Cicero police station.

From the desk, Pennock saw a stranger in a ball cap and waved the man around to the side entrance, as he moved to the door.

"Are you expecting anyone?" he called to Sgt. Andrew P. Scherer, who was in the evidence locker, processing material from a drug bust. "There's a guy at the back door."

And so it began: the 15 seconds . . .

In that wink of time last Sunday, two cops and a troubled U.S. Army soldier approached the edge - then stepped back.

Fifteen seconds . . .

"Can I help you?" Pennock asked, and opened the door.

Before him stood Matthew Campbell, 33, a native of Maine and a specialist in the Army's 10th Mountain Division, based at Fort Drum. In June, Campbell had returned from a 15-month tour of Afghanistan, where he served as an infantry medic.

His face held what the two cops later described as an expression of pain and anguish. His right hand clutched what appeared to be a high-caliber, semiautomatic assault rifle.

"What are you doing with the gun?" Pennock said loudly, directing his voice not only at the stranger but also at Scherer, who had stepped from the evidence locker.

Pennock drew his gun and closed the door partially, seeking to shield himself with the frame. Scherer drew his weapon and moved closer.

Standing on the pavement, Campbell lifted the rifle muzzle, as Pennock would later write, "so it was pointed in my general direction, in what I perceived as the male preparing to fire the rifle, at which time I prepared to defend myself."

Barely five seconds had elapsed . . .

In the culture of law enforcement, the tragedy goes by several names: "Suicide by cop," "police-assisted suicide" or, in the worst-case scenario, "victim-precipitated homicide."

For all the names, it is a simple event:

Someone points a gun at an officer, forcing the response.

For many reasons, they're hard to quantify. A 10-year study of 473 officer-involved shootings by the Los Angeles Police Department concluded in 1998 that 11 percent one out of 10 shootings could be suicide by cop.

It leaves a victim and, often, a broken career.

"You did what you had to do what you were trained to do," the Web site Suicide by Cop tells police officers. "The moral excellence that is part of you still exists. Whether you decide to continue in a law enforcement career or seek another profession, remember . . . you went home alive."

Some have drawn links to the many soldiers returning from war.

"The number of Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran suicides keeps escalating," wrote Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, a nonprofit advocacy group, in a recent editorial to his membership. "And a highly disturbing, yet very small, pattern is emerging: suicide by cop."

In 2005, a 19-year-old Marine, back home in California from Iraq, fired on two cops, killing one before being shot. Last December, a 29-year-old soldier, preparing for his second war deployment, barricaded himself in his Maryland home and pointed his gun at an officer, forcing another to fire. In May, a 28-year-old Minnesota National Guard member, back from Iraq, fired on police in a highway standoff. They shot back.

Sunday night,Pennock raised his weapon but did not pull the trigger.

Pennock's account comes from the written statement that accompanied the arrest. He was not available last week for an interview.

In the parking lot, he saw Campbell turn haphazardly to his left, letting the rifle drift back and forth in the direction of the doorway.

"What are you doing with a rifle?' Pennock said again.

Campbell looked into Pennock's eyes, then staggered backward, the gun barrel pointing downward. He cupped his hands over his face, raised the muzzle to the sky and bent forward.

"Drop the rifle," Pennock yelled.

Campbell lowered his hands, the muzzle downward, and studied Pennock, according to the statement.

"Stop! Drop the rifle!" the officer yelled.

Campbell backpedaled, dropped the weapon and fell to his knees, hands covering his face.

Ten seconds . . .

"I can't tell you the number of officers I've seen who probably would've shot this guy," said William Gaut, a former commander of detectives in the Birmingham, Ala., Police Department and a nationally recognized expert in law enforcement procedures.

Gaut reviewed a two-page report of the incident provided to him by The Post-Standard.

His conclusion: "Give the officer a medal."

He said Pennock did everything right. When confronted, rather than shoot, he sought cover. Then he let his fellow officer know the situation.

"Once he got his gun trained on (Campbell) and he's ready to use deadly force if it becomes necessary, he just talked to the guy and assessed the situation until the guy dropped the gun."

Gaut said he believes the officers would have been justified under the law if they'd shot Campbell.

But in the moment of truth, Campbell's gun hit the pavement.

"It got awfully good when he turned away and dropped the firearm," Scherer said Friday.

Pennock shouted that the weapon was down. Scherer rushed through the door and kicked the rifle across the pavement, out of reach.

They handcuffed Campbell and called for backup.

Over the nexthour, Scherer sought to calm the anguished man and learn what brought him there.

"Aren't you supposed to shoot people with guns?" Campbell asked.

How did Scherer respond?

"I told him that we were both sitting here, looking at each other, and a great thing had happened tonight."

Campbell was arrested on a charge of second-degree menacing, a misdemeanor, because the rifle turned out to be a pellet gun. The soldier had sought to provoke a shooting, but not to hurt anyone.

Scherer declined to discuss his talk with Campbell, saying he considers it private. In his arrest statement, he noted that the soldier had come with one purpose in mind.

"He acknowledged that he did not want to live anymore," Scherer wrote. "He explained that he had nothing to live for. He stated that he was a coward, not a good father, nor a good soldier."

He said Campbell at times broke down in the middle of an explanation and apologized to the police.

"I think the real issue is the concern that we should have for the individual who made that choice to come out here and do what he was doing," Scherer said. "That's where our time and efforts and thoughts and prayers should be."

Officials at Fort Drum last week released little information about Campbell's military record. He served in the 2d Battalion's 87th Infantry, a unit that suffered four deaths during its most recent tour of Afghanistan.

Campbell was being held for mental evaluation.

His lawyer, Ken Moynihan, said Campbell's family was too distraught to comment.

"We're just grateful nobody got hurt and that the police did the right thing," Moynihan said.

A 20-year police veteran, Scherer, 47, said he has been in gunfights but never fired on a person. Nor has Pennock, who came to the Cicero force in 1996.

In his job, Scherer teaches young officers firearm safety and the use of force. In those sessions, he stresses the need for training, because life or death can ride on a split-second decision.

Or 15 seconds.

"I'm a human being, you know, and a police officer," Scherer said. "Sometimes, being a human being comes first."

Hart Seely can be reached at hseely@syracuse.com or 470-2247. John O'Brien can be reached at jobrien@syracuse.com or 470-2187.




I saw this article over the weekend and had to put it here to spread it around. It hist home in many many ways. I grew up just outside of Ft Drum NY, I served in the military, I have previously fought battles with depression and have one brother-in-law who is in his 3rd tour of Iraq and a sister-in-law who is in Qatar.

How can your heart not go out who is suffering like this. We can only imagine the pain that brought him to that point outside the police station. We can only imagine as mental pain in silent and not easily visable....in the end pain is pain and you just have to wonder how many others are comming back like this but are suffering silently.

Godspeed