An elderly female caller to Plano Police Department told the dispatcher she had heard there had been some burglaries in her neighborhood and wanted to speak to an officer. “Sam” was the beat officer on duty who took the call.
Sam finished the call and had resumed patrol. A short time later, the dispatcher advised him that a caller from an address next door to the one he had just left reported hearing a gunshot at the residence, so Sam returned to the house.
Sam explained it this way during debriefing at the end of shift that night. The elderly female lived alone. She had told Sam her husband had always handled problems, but he had died recently. With him gone, she needed to take care of herself. She had heard reports of break-ins in the neighborhood and was worried about being alone and defenseless. She had bought a handgun for self-defense, and a box of bullets, but she didn’t know how to load the gun and she had never shot a firearm in her life. She asked Sam to give her a basic lesson in case she found herself facing an intruder.
Sam went through the customary program of reassuring her that the neighborhood was safe, and advised her on the usual crime prevention stuff. Then in response to her request, he had explained how her new gun worked. He even had her dry fire it a few times for practice, holding it out at arm’s length in front of her with both hands. Then last thing before he left, he had loaded the gun for her and cautioned her never to put her finger on the trigger unless she intended to shoot.
It had been maybe five or ten minutes after he had left the old lady’s house when the report had come of a neighbor hearing what sounded like a gunshot. When he got that second call, he figured there had been an accidental discharge, either through mishandling the weapon or carelessly repeating the dry fire exercise.
Sam returned and rang the doorbell. Nobody came to the door. He pounded the door and screamed her name. Still, she did not come. He had the dispatcher phone back her number from the earlier call, but there was no answer. Sam was getting frantic when the sergeant arrived. They kicked the front door and went in to find her dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. She had committed suicide so she could join her deceased husband. Sam had unwittingly taught her how to do it. She had been the consummate actor and had never shown any signs of her true intention during the earlier contact.
Some officers might have been traumatized at having been used like that by a person intent on committing suicide, but Sam was mentally equipped to realize that he was not responsible for her death. He handled it very well and if it affected him negatively, it never showed, either in the short term or the long term.