Homicide-suicide in police families: an analysis of cases from 2007-2014

There is a burgeoning body of evidence showing that police officers are at a higher risk of committing homicide-suicide than civilian counterparts. The purpose of this paper is to provide an update and expansion of previous work by Violanti (2007) on homicide-suicide in law enforcement families.

Police-perpetrated homicide-suicide cases were obtained through an online forum dedicated to topics related to domestic violence in police families. A total of 43 police-perpetrated homicide-suicides was identified and reviewed for presence/absence of variables similar to those examined by Violanti (2007), with the addition of new factors. χ2 analyses were performed to test for inter-study differences in proportions on variables of interest.

Results indicated a significantly smaller proportion of homicide-suicide incidents perpetrated by State officers. The remainder of the variable frequencies remained relatively consistent between studies. Of particular importance, domestic violence and divorce/estrangement were salient precursors in these cases.

Data were obtained from an online forum and media publications, which may not be regulated for accuracy and may contain biased data.

The current results, combined with the prior research, underscore the need for prevention programs and departmental policies that: increase the accessibility of mental health services, increase the availability of services for victims of police-involved intimate partner violence, and stress the enforcement of current domestic violence laws.

Results indicate that domestic violence is still a significant problem in law enforcement personnel, with the potential for lethal consequences.

To the authors knowledge, this is only the second study involving a formal analysis of police-involved homicide-suicide cases.