 The gun at top is a plastic fake pistol brandished by a woman fatally shot by an Edmonton police officer. The one below it is an authentic weapon. (Supplied)
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EDMONTON -- When Bernadette Auger was shot dead by city police on Saturday, she was brandishing a plastic BB gun that had been painstakingly coloured with a black felt pen so that it looked exactly like a Sig Sauer .32 calibre semi-automatic.
“It was not a functioning firearm,” said Clifton Purvis, the head of the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team, which investigates all police shootings in the province.
Purvis, who released photos of the toy gun involved in Auger’s death and the real McCoy Monday, said the tragedy is still under investigation, so no official conclusions have been drawn.
But because the toy looked so much like a deadly weapon, Auger’s grieving commonlaw husband feels that cops had no choice but to open fire outside their Alberta Avenue-area apartment building.
In fact, George Coward is convinced that’s what his wife, who he described as deeply disturbed, wanted.
It’s called “suicide by cop,” where people who don’t plan to hurt anyone else literally goad police into shooting them, and it’s disturbingly common. One leading expert estimates that it accounts for up to 12% of all police-involved shootings in North America.
“Suicides are a statement, a way to punish people,” Rebecca Stincelli said from her Folsom, California office. “To die violently puts an exclamation point on it.”
Stincelli, author of “Suicide By Cop — Victims from Both Sides of the Badge,” said the phenomenon leaves everyone involved reeling with grief and guilt.
“Families are left to question themselves,” she says. Often they blame the cops involved, demanding to know why they didn’t use non-lethal means, like shooting the suspect in the arm.
“And it’s devastating for the officers involved,” she added. “When they have to shoot someone with a mental illness or disturbance, they feel just terrible about it. When a shooting involves a bank robber or a hostage taker, it’s much easier to justify in their own minds.”
On Saturday afternoon, police were called to a domestic disturbance at 8411 119 Ave. When they arrived, they found Auger, 48, outside brandishing what looked like a handgun.
She disappeared back into the building, where according to one witness inside, Auger waved the gun and wandered from apartment to apartment, saying hello and apologizing to her neighbours.
A little later, she went outside again and moments later was shot by cops.
Purvis said Auger was struck by two bullets, one fired by a 13-year veteran of the force and the other by a cop with a year-and-a-half on the job. Both shots were fired at the same time, he said.
“I understand why the police did what they did,” Coward said. He said the gun was originally clear plastic, but was probably coloured black by one of Auger’s grandchildren.
Sgt. Tony Simioni, head of the city police union, said suicide by cop is “not common, but not uncommon, either.”
“Dealing with people who are deeply, emotionally disturbed is a large part of what we do,” he said. “I suspect it happens more often than we think.”
He said it’s “always frustrating” when people expect police to shoot suspects in the leg or the arm to wound them.
“We’re trained to shoot centre-of-mass,” he said. “That kind of Hollywood portrayal does no one any good.”
Stincelli said in the past decade suicide by cop has gotten more recognition.
She said she was in Edmonton in the 1990s for an training session with local Mounties that was unrelated to suicide by cop.
“But when they found out about my expertise, some of the officers began approaching me, wanting to talk about it,” she said. “I ended up doing some crisis interventions right there.”
andrew.hanon@sunmedia.ca
