This study describes historical, personality, behavioural, & situational factors of law enforcement-assisted suicides, which are also known as suicide-by-cop subjects. These factors were used to compare differences between subjects who forced officers to shoot them & those subjects who did not. Suicide-by-cop subjects appear to share several risk factors with other suicide victims. Some differences were detected in the characteristics between those subjects who forced police to intervence with lethal force & those who did not. Substance abuse, previous suicide attempts, stressful life events, length of residency in the location of the incident, & homicidal conversation during the incident did have weak relationships with the outcome of the incident. (16 refs.)