I don't know what the occupancy of the apartment complex is, but there were still people outside, moving about and driving through the parking lot.

The roommate told us the suspect walked into the bathroom with a gun. He heard a gun shot and then heard nothing else. He ran out of the apartment for help. The roommate was convinced the suspect had shot himself in the bathroom and was now dead.

I convinced the sergeant to initiate a SWAT call-out and bring in more officers. She made the calls and got it approved while I spoke with the roommate. The roommate told me the suspect had been smoking meth all day and was very agitated.

I worked for 10 years on SWAT, so I began to gather intelligence on the suspect so I could brief SWAT upon their arrival. The roommate drew me a nice diagram of the apartment and gave me all the information I asked for. Whⁱle I was doing this, the sergeant attempted to telephone the suspect both on hard line and cell phone with no luck.

About twenty minutes or so into the situation, dispatch told us the suspect's sister was on the phone and she had just spoken with him. About the same time, the roommate reached the suspect by cell phone and handed me the phone.

By this time, I have one more officer on the scene who has about six months of police experience. I had put him on the opposite comer of the building to hold a perimeter.

I was in a cover position about 40 feet from the suspect's front door After he hung up the phone, I drew my gun. About 30 seconds later, the suspect came out of the front door of his apartment. He was holding a semi-auto hand gun in his right hand and had the gun pointed at his temple.

I repetitiously and aggressively identified myself and ordered the suspect to put the gun down. His response was, "Kill me, shoot me. You're gonna have to shoot me, come on shoot me;" etc. Still not having a good perimeter and knowing SWAT was on the way, I told the male to go back into the apartment. Surprisingly, he complied.

The suspect turned and walked back toward his apartment. He stopped, turned toward me, and fired one shot in my direction. I did not have a clean shot. Besides scaring the hell out of me, my backdrop was about a dozen other apartments where I had seen people a short time earlier, and I felt very uncomfortable shooting in that direction. The male made it back inside of the apartment. I felt good about him being in the apartment because, hopefully, we could keep him contained until more help arrived.

No such luck. He came out of the apartment again more agitated than he had been. He kept yelling the same challenge for me to shoot him, etc. He would yell for a few seconds and then go back to the apartment. This cycle repeated about six or seven times and each time he walked closer and closer to my position.

After the second time he came out, I moved about 30 feet further away behind a patrol car. He came out into the parking lot a couple of times in the same manner and got closer again.

I retreated back one more time to the position where the sergeant and my partner were My partner had the bean bag shotgun. He was unable to get a clear shot due to distance and obstacles. The male continued to move further and further out into the parking lot still holding the gun to his own head and yelling for us to shoot him, and he was going to kill us. He finally moved to a position where we could no longer retreat and to where we were going to be exposed without cover. He was standing in the parking lot between two cars with a ten-foot high concrete wall behind him.

At this time, I saw a bystander crouched down in front of one of the cars the suspect was standing by. I saw the suspect start to turn toward the bystander. Feeling my options had run out and I had no other choice, and that if I did not take action, the by stander, myself, and my crew would be in imminent danger, I shot numerous rounds at the suspect until he fell to the ground.

The suspect fell to his right side. The gun was still in his right hand and I could see he was still moving. He was given several commands to push the gun away so we could help him, but he did not respond. We kept him covered until SWAT arrived. When the SWAT van pulled up, they had only two members on-board. The rest were en route from their various homes.

Since I am SWAT trained, I was called to assist SWAT. We put a counter-sniper into position and the SWAT sergeant and I moved in on the suspect behind a ballistic shield. We secured the gun and handcuffed the suspect. I saw three bullet casings laying near the body. This was the first I had any indication that the suspect had fired his gun. By this time, it was probable that the suspect was dead. The medics were on standby a short distance away. I retrieved a medic and the medic confirmed the suspect was dead.

Okay, now what. Actually, I was feeling confident about my actions. My partner was looking pretty shaky and upset. This was my third on-duty shooting, but my first fatal shooting. I knew what was coming in the next several hours, so that took about 90% of the worry out of my mind. This was the first time anyone else at the scene had been directly involved in any officer-involved shooting.

As soon as we secured the scene, I pulled my partner aside. He had not fired, but was pretty shaken up. I assured him everything was going to be okay and explained what was going to be happening for the rest of the night. I got on the phone and called for my LDF rep and called my wife. She was already in bed and did not pick up the phone, so I only left her a message saying I would be late. My partner was complaining of ringing in his ear. We got him off to the hospital and found out he had a ruptured ear drum. I was standing directly over his shoulder when I shot.

Lots and lots of police people began showing up including the chief and patrol captain. I grabbed a soda out of my car and found an out-of-the-way spot to hang out.

There were two difficult times which came up. One was when the suspect's sister showed up on scene, and I could hear her reaction when she was given the news. The other was when the roommate got upset and began yelling about how [we] handled the situation and how it took too long to get the medic to the suspect. He later apologized.

The lead investigator was ready for a walk through, so we did that. After that, we were off to the station where my LDF rep was waiting During a meeting with all of the involved officers was the first time I knew the suspect had fired toward one of my fellow officers just a fraction of a second before I started firing on the suspect. I still had no recollection at all of the suspect shooting

I met with my LDF rep and about two hours later, everyone was ready to start the interviews. I was first up.

The interview contained my departments critical incident investigator, lead criminal investigations sergeant, a deputy DA, a DA investigator and my LDF rep. By the time the interview started, my adrenaline kick was wearing off and I was getting tired. I felt pretty confident through the interview, but as always, you start to wonder about the direction of some of the questions. I slid very well all through the interview until we got to the point where I had to describe shooting the suspect. At that point, I could feel some emotion starting to push through.

I held it back and finished the interview. After the interview was over, the deputy DA, critical incident investigator, and investigations sergeant left the room. The DA investigator leaned across the table, shook my hand and said, "Good job."

Wow. What a relief. That made all the difference in the world to me. It pretty much put my mind at ease and I was starting to feel better again. Shortly after that is when I walked outside and saw the sunrise.

My wife always claims she knows me so well. Well, I guess she is right. From the short message I left her on the recorder, she knew I had been involved in an incident where someone had died. She's right, she does know me well.

Well, after all that, for those that care, here are a few things I believe made this whole situation much easier for me:

I. I was mentally prepared to shoot the suspect. I have handled many calls of this type and while responding to the calls, I try to play out the many ways the situation could play out, including shooting. While this is actually the first time I have killed a suspect, I have killed quite a few in my mind.

2. I train like I work and I work like I train. I pay attention to details. When at the range, I resnap my holster between rounds. I drop my mag and reload while looking at the target. I practice good grip, point shooting one-handed shooting and technique.

3. I tried to get as many resources into place as possible in the form of force alternatives, hostage negotiator, and SWAT. Even though I believed the suspect was dead in the apartment, I treated the apartment as if there was still an armed suspect inside. Whew, I'm thankful for that one.

4. I had a thorough understanding of the procedures for post-shooting incidents. I knew what to expect, which helped take away much of the anxiety. The investigators did not take my gun until I returned to the station, and they actually gave me a new one before they took mine.

5. Being able to talk with an officer who had also been involved in a fatal shooting and understanding where each of us are coming from. Truly having a peer to talk to.

6. My wife of 17 years.

7. Knowing die actions I took probably saved the life of an innocent person or fellow officer.

There's probably a couple more things I can't think of right now, but I'm a little tired at the moment.

The Next 24 Hours

I got lots of phone calls yesterday. I found out how many people do actually care about me. After I took a little nap, I abandoned the house and went to a friend's house for a couple of hours. I ate a good meal with my family, and slept like a log last night.

When I got up this morning I obviously thought it over again. I felt very comfortable with what happened. Not that I felt good, because I didn't, it's just that I felt I did all the right things and the end was justified by the situation.

At 1000 hours, we all met with a psychiatrist for a Critical Incident Stress Debriefing It was a very productive session and everyone felt much better afterward. The officer who was the most shaken up - and I was most concerned about - the one I ruptured the eardrum on, was doing much better today. Our session lasted about three hours. At various times, everyone had a little tear in their eye.

I wanted to avoid it, but I ended up reading the articles in the two local newspapers about die incident. Surprisingly, both papers presented the story as a suicide by cop and neither were critical of our actions. In fact, one paper spoke with a researcher who has done studies on suicide by cop and her comments were very positive. Something that both papers picked up on is that we had the flea baton rounds (bean bag shotgun) ready to be used. Even if it may have been inappropriate to actually use the flex baton, it showed we considered, and had available, options other than deadly force. Of course, the newspaper articles were not very accurate in the sequence of events, but most of the information was there.

The four of us involved returned to the scene where investigators were still going over it and collecting evidence. The investigations sergeant described for us what they had found and what they learned.

Here are a few details that I found since the shooting. There was another sergeant in the parking lot at the time of the shooting. He had arrived to pick up the diagram I had the roommate draw, drop off a cell phone, and go back to a nearby church to set up a command post.

When the shooting started, he shot one round, missing the suspect. He was unable to shoot more because the innocent bystander who was at the front of the car ran into his field of fire. Right after the incident, the sergeant did not know if he had actually shot or not.

The suspect was autopsied yesterday. I fired a total of 12 rounds with one hand at 45 feet. I struck the suspect 8 times with the fatal round entering the left temple and exiting by the right eye. At the time and, even now from my memory, I would not be able to tell you how many rounds I fired other than "a lot." The suspect was carrying a Glock 10 mm. His magazines were staggered with one full metal jacket round and one hollow point. He fired five times in the direction of the second sergeant, but lit nothing but objects. At the time of the shooting, I had no idea the sergeant or the suspect had shot at all. The first I knew the suspect shot his gun was when he was handcuffed and I saw three casings lying near his body. Everyone except me said he fired die first round. In my mind, I shot preemptively to save the life of the bystander.

The round the suspect fired just outside of his apartment when I first saw him went through a nearby apartment. The round passed 12 inches over a seven-year-old girls head who was sleeping in a bunk bed at the time.

The suspect had been telling his father for some time (I don't know exactly how long) that he was going to commit suicide by getting a cop to kill him. The suspect was apparently a Christian and believed if he killed himself he would not go to heaven. He left a suicide note in the apartment, but I don't know the contents.

The suspect apparently owned several guns. When the detectives served die search warrant on the apartment, they found a loaded magazine for a mini-14. No other guns were found in the apartment.

The detectives believe the suspect's friends had been taking his guns and hiding them away because o£ his threats of suicide. The detectives found large quantities of meth, ecstacy, prescription drugs, and some other illegal drugs in the apartment. The suspect had reportedly been taking up to 50 Vikaden per day.

Again, I want to emphasize, I believe I have been able to handle this incident as well as I have due to my commitment to training, being mentally prepared to take a life or handle an incident like this before an incident like this occurs, and utilizing training and experience in dealing with this incident.