Suicide by Cop: Difference between revisions

''I could hold out here all night''

''Yes, I crossed my old man back in Oregon''

 

A depressed or desperate individual wants to end their own life, but, for various reasons (cowardice, a desire to make a point, insurance, moral aversion to suicide), [[I Cannot Self-Terminate|is not willing to do it themselves]].

 

 

Could be broadly applied to any situation where a character attacks specifically because the expected reaction from the relevant authorities will cause the desired outcome, such as a [[Cold War]] scenario in which a [[General Ripper|megalomaniac United States general]] attacks the Soviet Union because the Soviet counterstrike would kill him ([[A Million Is a Statistic|and a few million others]], but who's counting?).

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* ''[[Naruto]]'''s Itachi Uchiha had an extreme subversion of Suicide By Cop well, brother, anyway. He came up with a plan and waited SEVEN years before having his brother kill him in a blaze of glory. In those seven years he did everything possible to drive the boy insane just to make sure he would kill him. The subversion is that he's ostensibly doing this for Sasuke's benefit and for other noble reasons, but his plan backfires ''spectacularly'' with nearly all of his goals save Sasuke's strength in ashes at this point.

** Then there's Haku, who plays this straight at first.

* ''[[Pet Shop of Horrors]]'': Arguably, Count D's father did this, initially intending the FBI Agent to do it, yet having Leon Orcot put the bullet through his head in the end.

** Suzaku's [[Death Seeker|general attitude]] is this.

* ''[[Madlax]]'' has a war-tired general who realizes that the war plaguing his country is orchestrated by [[The Syndicate]] (and he is but their pawn, too) and hires the eponymous [[Action Girl]] to assassinate him in broad daylight as his final act of defiance. The episode also serves to introduce [[The Rival]] to the girl, [[Dark Action Girl]] Limelda, who was assigned to protect the general.

* ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'' has a variation in ''Black Dog Serenade'' which is suicide by ex-cop. Jet's old partner threatens to shoot him: the gun is empty and [[Redemption Equals Death|he just wants Jet to kill him]].

* Carris tries this in ''[[After War Gundam X|Gundam X]]'' after a bit of a [[Freak-Out]], pointing at Garrod with an empty gun to trick the other into shooting him dead. He gets better, however.

* ''[[Magic Knight Rayearth]]'', which turns out to be from the POV of the "cops". The girls have been summoned to "save" Princess Emeraude by killing her, so she can be released from her duty as [[Fisher King|Pillar of Cephiro]], in which role she has been gravely compromised since she fell for her Guardian, Zagato, and Cephiro itself started to die since she couldn't fully dedicate herself to it.

* [[MW|Michio]] can provoke anyone to kill him, including Garai.

* An [[Gambit Pileup|extremely convoluted]] plot in ''[[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle]]'' involves Ashura-ou setting things up to force Fai (or is it Yuui?) to kill him. This makes Fai <s> even more</s> [[Driven to Suicide|suicidal]], too, [[Deus Angst Machina|just for good measure]].

* Rukia from ''[[Bleach]]'' viewed the possibility of being executed as this, since she was a [[Failure Knight]] who [[Shoot the Dog|had to kill]] her [[Big Brother Mentor]] and first love when he was taken over by a Hollow.

* Judai from ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]'', after his whole takeover of the Dark World thing. Though he was trying to commit suicide by former underling, technically. He did believe that was the only way to make up for his sins at the time. He learned differently, but he still tried.

* This is more or less what Soichiro Yagami ultimately does in ''[[Death Note]]''. After his daughter is abducted and used to blackmail him, after he's forced to choose between surrendering the [[Artifact of Doom]] to the Mafia or sacrificing his life and hers, he chooses to take the shinigami eyes and halve his life. {{spoiler|Turns out he didn't have that long to live, regardless}}.

* Done in ''[[Gantz]]'' by Izumi, who guns down hundreds of civilians in a crowded Tokyo train station so that he'll be killed and sent to the Gantz.

* Pretty much the MO of the person who brings Layton into the case in ''[[Professor Layton and The Eternal Diva]]''.

** Unfortunately, as soon as he saw [[The Ace|Conrad]] in town his goal became to get his homeland's famous swordsman to kill him, and to that end he attacked the guy [[The Ace]] was protecting...then found out that that was the new king of his country, and he was now a traitor as well as an exile.

** Of course, Vash "disapproves of suicide more than anything," so if he is doing this it's probably subconscious.

* Greed in [[Fullmetal Alchemist (anime)|the 2003 anime version]] of ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', who intentionally picks a fight with and enrages Ed on false pretenses so the latter will kill him, as it is preferable to waiting around for Dante to re-seal him.

 

== Comic Books ==

** Sounds like this plot was "borrowed" from ''The Odd Job'', originally a half-hour comedy playlet starring [[Ronnie Barker]] and later remade as a movie starring [[Graham Chapman]]. In both versions the man changes his mind and tries to persuade the hitman not to kill him. The man eventually succeeds, but then falls victim to one of the hitman's death traps anyway.

** Sound like ''that'' Plot was "borrowed" from the [[Jules Verne]] book ''Tribulations of a Chinaman y China'' where an aristocrat who loses his fortunes buys a life insurance and asks his butler to kill him, but then recovers it and changes his mind. In his story, however, in the end everything is well and the character learns a valuable lesson. Can we say "[[Older Than They Think]]"?

** Similarly, previously suicidal Rictor goes up against a horde of cops, armed with only a paintball gun. Later, Guido calls him on it.

* In ''[[Y: The Last Man]]'', Alter does something similar, murdering Agent 355 in order to bait Yorick into avenging her. Yorick sees through her and leaves her alive. The twist is Alter insists her death be at a man's hands - a good deal of the conflict in the series wouldn't have happened if she'd just been alright letting another woman kill her.

** Spider-Man accuses Green Goblin of trying this during the "A Death in the Family" storyline, when Green Goblin puts Flash Thompson in a coma and then goes public with claims that Gwen Stacy died due to Spider-Man failing to safely catching her body when it fell off the bridge, and making claims of having sex with Gwen. We never find out from Norman if Spider-Man was right or not, though the ending implies that Norman could have murdered Spider-Man with a gun in his desk drawer during his [[Hannibal Lecture]] leaves it vague.

* In ''[[The Ultimates]] volume 3'', Hawkeye nearly goads Wolverine into killing him by shooting him from a short distance.

* Subverted in an issue of ''[[The Punisher]]'', as after chasing the [[Big Bad]] all over the city, Frank finally cornered him, only to have probably the only thing close to an honest cop catch up and point a gun to HIS head. Frank ends the Mexican standoff by tossing [[Big Bad]] his own gun. [[Big Bad]] makes to shoot Frank, causing the cop to kill him instead.

* The Cavalier (Hudson Pyle) does this in the ''[[Batman]]: Legends of the Dark Knight'' arc "Blades", purposely charging the cops and getting gunned down.

* In ''[[Ultimate Spider-Man]]'' Norman Osbourne begs S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to kill him after he unthinkingly beats his own son to death as the Green Goblin.

* In the first ''[[Sin City]]'' story, it's implied that Marv tries this after his [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] is over, figuring that the Roarke family will kill him anyway. Cops do come and shoot him but he lives, only to face a [[Kangaroo Court]].

 

== Film ==

* The main character in ''[[Falling Down]]'' draws a water pistol during a stand off, and is shot by a cop because other methods of suicide would result in loss of his life insurance policy. While falling backwards, he notes that he would have won - he squirted the cop before getting shot.

* An example of the aforementioned "megalomaniacal general" is given in ''[[Terminator]] 2'', in the form of an artificial intelligence. The T-800, describing Judgement Day to John Connor, mentions that Skynet attacked Russia because it knew that the Russian counter-strike would eliminate its enemies in the United States.

* In ''The Chase'' the main character, after having run from the police for most of the movie, finally realizes it's not going to work, and that he's putting his hostage-turned-love-interest through a lot of danger. Consequently, he releases the (reluctant) girl and gets out of the car. A deep, slow-motion, underwater-sound scene follows, in which he looks around at the massive police force surrounding him and smokes a last cigarette. Then, suddenly, he makes a gun shape with his hands and rapidly points it at the cops. He is shot countless times and falls down, dead... and then he blinks and shakes his head: it was just an [[Indulgent Fantasy Segue]], and he's still in the car.

* In ''[[Dogma]]'', the rogue angels Bartleby and Loki planned to become human, then absolve their sins through plenary indulgence, and die, thus getting back into heaven. Suicide would be a strict no-no, so Bartleby killed a bunch of people, planning to be cut down by the police as he exited the church (the murder coming before the absolution of their sins). On a larger scale, the villain Azrael plotted to [[Chessmaster|trick God]] into being forced to ''destroy the entire universe'', just so that he would no longer suffer in Hell.

* In ''[[Minority Report]]'', Anderton is trying to prevent a future in which he kills a man, and nearly succeeds... only for the man to commit Suicide By Pre-Cop.

* In ''[[Se7en]]'', the killer murders the wife of one of his investigators, angering him into shooting the killer, which completes the set of seven sins (wrath).

* In ''[[Bulworth]]'', the title character purchases a 10 million dollar life insurance policy, then places a hit on himself to be performed within the next two days. He then tries to ruin his image by being completely unrestrained in his political opinions to give plausibility to his assassination. Ironically enough, this [[Springtime for Hitler|ends up working in his favor]] and when he tries to call off the hit, he finds that his contact to the mafia suffered a heart attack.

* The police in ''[[Phone Booth (film)|Phone Booth]]'' suspect the main character of attempting this, and actively seek to defy it. Of course they're [[Wrong Genre Savvy]] as Stu doesn't want to commit suicide, he's being held hostage by a man with a sniper rifle aimed at the booth.

* At the end of ''[[Odd Man Out]]'', Cathleen kills both herself and her lover this way. Although, to be fair, he was already bleeding to death and wanted by the police, so it's really an act of mercy.

* In the movie ''[[Reign Over Me]]'', Charlie Fineman attempts suicide through this method. However instead of being shot by the cops, he is instead tackled and arrested.

* Bruce Lee in ''[[Fist Of Fury]]''.

* In the remake of ''[[The Crazies]]'', Deputy Russell faces the army soldiers with an unloaded gun so he wouldn't have to succumb to the infection and to provide a distraction for the other survivors.

* Near the end of ''[[The Town]]'', James, the main character's right hand man and adopted brother, does this when he's wounded after a botched robbery rather than go back to jail.

 

== Literature ==

* At the end of ''[[The Spy Who Came in from the Cold]]'' Lemas commits suicide by East German Border Guard when his girlfriend is shot by a treacherous East German.

* Inverted in ''[[A Touch of Frost]]'' when a drunk and depressed DI Frost tackles an armed criminal. He fails to get himself killed but does get the George Cross.

* In ''[[Rebecca]],'' it is eventually revealed that the title character goaded her husband into killing her, so that she wouldn't have to face a lingering death by cancer.

* In ''[[Green Rider]]'', Jendara, knowing that her [[Heel Face Turn]] was not going to redeem her in the eyes of her former colleagues for having turned traitor in the first place, and that the traditional punishment for a member of her order who commits treason is to be slowly tortured for weeks and then get staked out for the vultures - ''while still alive'', deliberately attacks the Weapons who try to take her prisoner, forcing them to kill her quickly.

* [[Star Wars Expanded Universe|Lumiya]] recieves this via Luke in the novel ''[[Legacy of the Force|Sacrifice]]''. An interesting subersion in that she didn't really seem to have any wish to die and simply felt she'd [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|played her part]]. Jacen Solo even refers to it as 'Suicide By Skywalker.'

** Tal'dira in ''[[X Wing Series|Solo Command]]'' was brainwashed into attempting to shoot down Wedge Antilles while on a mission. Unable to let go of his conditioning, he instead lowers his own starfighter's shields during the attempt, enabling one of his squadmates to kill him before he can complete his mission. Bonus points in that said squadmate used to be a cop before becoming a pilot.

* In ''[[Tim Powers|On Stranger Tides]]'', Stede Bonnet falls under Blackbeard's power via ''vodun'' and extortion, but eventually opts to escape being a sorcerous puppet by invoking this trope ... with the Royal Navy as the cops. His desire to be killed in battle rather than hanged leads him to escape from jail when captured, then provoke the pursuing soldiers into firing on his own party of fugitives.

* ''The Zoo Story'', Jerry, who is a homeless very lonely man meets another man named Peter and forces him to kill him. Although he doesn't tell him to kill him, Jerry tries to get Peter mad enough to do it.

 

* The White House is shot at in an episode of ''[[The West Wing]]'' by a "disturbed individual" trying to be shot by the secret service.

* ''[[CSI: Miami]]'': Horatio's nemesis Clavo Cruise, having had all his plans foiled, shows up at the crime lab and, waiting until Horatio and other police officers have their weapons trained on him, tries to take a shot at Horatio.

* Zander Smith was killed in this way on ''[[General Hospital]]''

* A suicidal cop in ''[[Third Watch]]'' takes main character Bosco hostage, holds Bosco's own gun on him, then walks into broad daylight and deliberately opens himself up to a clear shot from a SWAT sniper.

* Referred to by name in ''[[NCIS]]'', after Kate shoots a despairing man who was waving an (unloaded) handgun in a threatening manner.

** And averted spectacularly in another episode, "Murder 2.0", where the protagonists run into a hostage situation that looks to be the hostage-taker trying to commit suicide by cop... until Gibbs realizes that she's being forced by the "hostage" to "threaten" him with an unloaded weapon, and what's really going on is that the "hostage-taker" was being set up for a ''Homicide'' By Cop. Fortunately, it didn't work.

* ''[[Blue Heelers]]'' did this when Constable Susie Rayner is introduced with her husband Brad, an ex cop who was injured and wheelchair bound on the job. As he spirals further into depression he lashes out at Susie, and Ben when he tries to help. Convinced they are having an affair Brad steal's Ben's service revolver and makes as if he's going to kill Susie, forcing Ben to shoot him in self defense. The subsequent court case looked into the possibility of Brad being suicidal and he wanted to be killed, and this was eventually ruled as the official cause.

* Spotlighted in an episode of ''[[Law and Order Special Victims Unit]]''.

** In another episode, a junkie robs his father's bank, and accidentally shoots his father in the process. As he heads out to commit Suicide By Cop, Dr. Warner shoots him in the leg with Stabler's backup weapon, allowing the SWAT team to restrain him.

* Faith attempts Suicide By Vampire Detective in the ''[[Angel]]'' episode "Five By Five".

* In the ''Series/Torchwood'' episode "Sleeper", knowing that when the aliens eventually activate her, her human personality will be permanently replaced by that of an alien killing machine, the sleeper agent Beth decides she'd rather die as a human and atone for the death of her husband, so she pretends she's about to slash Gwen's throat, forcing the other Torchwood members to shoot her.

* In ''[[Airwolf]]'', the Evil Dr. Moffett may have committed suicide by attack helicopter. He had pointed out the one place that the helicopter was vulnerable to a [[Murphy's Bullet|Golden BB]], and in another scene they had shown that he had the necessary skill with a pistol to make the shot.

* An episode of ''[[Millennium (TV series)|Millennium]]'' features a woman doing this at the end of an episode by pulling not a gun out of her pocket, but a tiny piece of metal that has a shape resembling the [[What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic|Virgin Mary's face]] on it. The fact that the woman who does this is a stereotypically butch lesbian (flannel and all) makes it a bit awkward to think about.

** On Capt. Sherdian's first day on the job, the whole crew of a rogue Minbari ship tries to do this to spark a new Earth-Minbari war. Fortunately, Sheridan figures out what they are attempting and refuses to cooperate. Ultimately, they all commit suicide when they are cornered by a Minbari ship sent to capture them.

* ''[[Dexter]]'', at the end of the third season, makes it look like this is how the Skinner dies.

* Given the subject matter, it was almost inevitable this would occur on ''[[Flashpoint (TV series)|Flashpoint]]''. A couple attempt it "Last Dance", and it finally happens in "Behind The Blue Line".

* In ''[[Rome]]'' a defeated and despaired Brutus chooses not to flee a lost battle and instead marches unarmored against approaching enemy cohorts of heavy infantry, he is rapidly surrounded and killed in a fashion resembling the killing of [[Julius Caesar]], a deed he committed with other senators.

* Subverted in the opening scene of ''[[Breaking Bad]]'' pilot; what do you do when you, the protagonist, until that moment a law abiding citizen, a trusted and respected member of your community, a loving husband and father, end up in underwear in the middle of the desert, driving a mobile meth-lab chased by police cars that get closer and closer? You leave a videotaped farewell message to the loved ones then proceed to confront the police with a gun in your hand ready to shoot.

* In ''[[Without a Trace]]'', this happened in the {{spoiler|17th}} episode of the {{spoiler|2nd}} season; {{spoiler|an Iraqi war veteran accidentally kills a woman in a bank heist he pulled to get enough money to keep his house from being repossessed and his girlfriend from leaving him. In the end, after taking the girlfriend and an FBI agent hostage in his home, he agrees to come out. He unloads the gun he's holding (out of view of the SWAT officers that surrounded his house) and walks right out the front door, pointing the gun at the officers, who open fire. The final scene is [[Downer Ending|the FBI agent holding the hysterical, sobbing girlfriend back from running after him and into the line of fire, as the agent sheds a few tears himself]]}}.

 

== Music ==

* Seems to be what [[Steely Dan]]'s song "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tllhmK9g4G4 Don't Take Me Alive]" from their album ''The Royal Scam'' is about. See page quote.

* In P.O.S.' song "That One", the rapper mentions that he's "in the mood for suicide by cop" in the wake of a bad ending to a relationship.

 

== Video Games ==

* Squall can attempt this in the D-District Prison segment of ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'' by insulting the prison warden during his [[Electric Torture]]. He doesn't succeed, but choosing the option [[Violation of Common Sense|nets the player a reward a little later on]].

* Angeal from ''Crisis Core: [[Final Fantasy VII]]'' does this - by turning into a [[One-Winged Angel]] and attacking Zack.

*** He even has a couple of possibly-hallucinatory [[Talking to the Dead]] moments with Zach later on.

* The entire plot of the ''[[.hack GU Games|.hack//G.U.]]'' games basically revolves around this. [[The Chessmaster]] Ovan effectively manipulates Haseo into killing him, because only if Ovan's (extremely high-level) PC is killed by Haseo's special PC, his special ability will be activated, resetting the entire internet and cleansing it of the corruption that has been sending gamers (including [[Ill Girl|Ovan's own sister]]) into coma.

* In ''[[Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World]]'', Emil Castagnier {{spoiler|(that is, [[Tomato in the Mirror|Ratatosk]]),}} plans to fake possession by his [[Super-Powered Evil Side]] {{spoiler|and get the party to kill him so that he can become a Core to seal the Ginnungagap}}. It's half wanting to save the world and half guilt from learning that he killed Aster. [[Multiple Endings|It's up to the player to decide if he succeeds]].

* It's not explicitly stated, but it's fairly clear this is what Caster did in Heavens Feel route of ''[[Fate/stay night]]''. Her Master and reason for living has just been killed and she's standing over his body, covered in blood and horrified when Saber and Shirou show up. When she finally notices them, she doesn't explain and, most tellingly, puts away her contract nullifying dagger and simply attacks. Normally she'd teleport out or something. But why bother?

** Her master pulls the same trick in the Unlimited Blade Works route when Caster is killed. Even though the heroes are willing to let him go (he's completely harmless to them), he still picks a fight he cannot win with Archer to "finish what he started", and is killed instantly.

* Sol in ''[[Final Fantasy Legend]] 3'', who was merged with Xagor and said, "I'll hold Xagor's soul for you, kill me!" to the party. Knowing that Xagor attempted to conquer Sol so the entity flooding the world would never stop, Sol also knew that he could get himself killed, and take Xagor down with him and stop the entity in its last stage.

* In ''[[Mass Effect]]'' Matriarch Benezia chooses this path (by Protagonist, who is ''sort of'' a cop) after briefly breaking [[Eldritch Abomination|Sove]][[Sapient Ship|reign's]] indoctrination. She knew Sovereign's indoctrination was permanent and her respite would only be temporary and chose death over continuing its evil.

* Sniper Wolf in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' really just waits for a soldier who is able to kill her. But as a world class sniper who doesn't hold back with her skills in combat, she's not making it particularly easy for her enemies.

* One sidequest in the ''[[Morrowind]]'' expansion ''Bloodmoon'' involves an old man who feels like he has nothing left to contribute, and is only a burden on his family, so he tries to do this. The player character can either kill him, or endure his attacks and talk some sense into him when he wears himself out.

* In ''[[Vampire Bloodlines]]'' a particularly cruel [[Power Born of Madness|Malkavian]] player can make an unfortunate [[Muggle]] do this to himself [[Killed to Uphold the Masquerade|to uphold the Masquerade]] by forcing him to go to the nearest police station and draw a gun.

* Done in ''[[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim|Skyrim]]'' during the {{spoiler|Dark Brotherhood}} questline. {{spoiler|After selling the player out to [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|Commander Maro]] and being literally burned for it, Astrid uses her own body as a Black Sacrament and put a contract on herself.}}

 

== Web Comics ==

* {{spoiler|Miho}} in ''[[Megatokyo]]'', though she got better.

 

== Western Animation ==

* In the ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' cartoon "The Cheese Chasers", two mice, having eating so much cheese they feel they can't eat any again, decide that there's [["Seen It All" Suicide|nothing left to live for]] and try to get a cat to eat them. The cat, suspicious that it's all a trick, grows paranoid and eventually decides to end it all as well. So he goes to a dog and asks him to kill him. The dog, in trying to figure out the whole situation, goes mad as well, and chases down the dog catcher.

** ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' seemed to like this one, as there was also a [[Just for Pun|hen-pecked bird]] who wanted Sylvester to eat him, rather than put up with his wife for another day. [[Hilarity Ensues]].

* There was some evidence in ''[[Beast Wars]]'' that Rampage's [[Complete Monster]] behavior and focus on Depth Charge was, in part, an attempt to commit Suicide By Depth Charge to atone for that horrific behavior and all the lives he took when activated.

{{quote|'''Blackarachnia''': You'll regret this!

'''Rampage, softly''': I regret ''everything'', my dear. }}

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Death Tropes]]

[[Category:Guns and Gunplay Tropes]]