Life Over Death
What leads a person to attempt police-assisted suicide? And what does survival look like? Georgie Jackson shares her story.
Editor’s note: This is a story about overcoming trauma. Please be aware that it mentions rape, suicide attempts, and bodily injury.
Georgie Jackson is one of 58 residents in the Transitional Care Unit at Central California Women’s Facility, one part of the institution that offers a higher level of medical care. Like many of the residents, she relies on a wheelchair, but what separates Jackson from the rest is how she got there. The fact that she was not paralyzed, nor did she have any real health issues before coming to prison, played a part in her journey.
In 2017, Jackson woke up at a friend‘s house. She was high and naked. Jackson said she knew she had been raped from the pain she felt in her genitals. She tried to tell her friends what happened, but they wouldn’t listen to her. So, she started to spiral out of control. Still, no one listened. She got high again to numb the pain. Unsure of what to do, Jackson fixated on the one thought that kept entering her mind again and again, and that was to end it all. To give up and die.
A few hours after the incident, gun in hand, she went to her rapist’s house, unsure of her intentions. When she saw his truck in the driveway, she raised the gun and started shooting.
The next evening, while walking out of her friend’s place in a nearby trailer park, she was high again and still wanting to die. But this time, there was one big difference: the police had found her.
The first officer on the scene was a female cop. She looked at Jackson sternly and asked her by name what was going on, as if they were looking for her. Jackson, wide-eyed and mouth open, screamed, “I was raped!” and turned and ran away. By the time the officers caught up to her, she was a quarter mile away, and this time, that same officer brought backup.
Again, Jackson started to yell, though her real thought was to shoot herself. She raised the gun to her head. But something kept her from pulling the trigger. Was it fear? No, according to Jackson, it was her own cowardliness. She just could not shoot herself. The gun could misfire, she thought. Or worse, she could live through it.
On impulse, she tried the next best thing. She screamed out, “Kill me!” and slowly turned the gun toward the police. And before Jackson knew what happened, 13 bullets rang out. Three of them punctured her body.
There are no set reporting procedures for suicide by cop for law enforcement offices. So it’s hard to know just how often this form of tragedy takes place.
Research published by the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law in 2023 suggests that it’s rare, citing a handful of studies where officerassisted deaths are well below 20%.
Better known are the causes; people (overwhelmingly men) with mental health and substance abuse histories, an arrest record, and recent life trauma are most likely to provoke police to shoot.
Very few people survive this kind of suicide attempt. Because of the danger posed to officers, suicide-bycop survivors often face attempted homicide charges and lengthy prison sentences.
The shooting should’ve been the end of Jackson’s story, but her higher power had something more in store for her.
When Jackson came to, she discovered she was semi-paralyzed from the waist down. She had lost one kidney and her gallbladder. She had no control of her bowels. She would now have to use a wheelchair.
“I was pissed!” Jackson said. “I was not just physically messed up. I was still alive! I was so angry. I was mad at everyone, even God.” To top it off, Jackson said, she had to go through two months of intense hospital care following the shooting.
Jackson was charged with seconddegree attempted murder of a peace officer, tried, and ultimately sentenced to 69 years and eight months to life. She felt disgust for being raped and for her new situation. It took a couple of years for these feelings to slowly dissipate.
She recalled the moment that changed everything for her: “While I was at my lowest point, and I’m not sure I could get any lower, I found Jesus. It was that simple.”
Since that day, Jackson has worked hard to become a different person from who she was all those years ago. At 51, she regrets her choices in life, especially the choice to start using drugs. She has made enormous strides in retraining her brain to change the way she thinks.
She has done this by attending self-help groups, going to Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings on a regular basis, and completing the prison’s Substance Abuse Program. She said she no longer wishes to commit suicide and hasn’t gotten high in years. Continuing to do self-help groups has helped her to stay out of trouble and “keep busy.”
“Look at what I lived through,” Jackson said. “This is my second chance at life and for once, I’m finally sober. I’m not throwing away the chance God has given me with my children, my grandchildren, with my life.”
Her focus now is to go home one day, to be with family. She hopes that people will learn from her mistakes: that suicide by cop or any other way is not the answer to anything, not to mention it doesn’t always work.
Jackson realizes the trauma she caused was not limited to her family or to any bystanders, but also to the first responders, like the police officers whom she threatened. During one of our talks, Jackson confided that this was the first time she had the chance to tell her story.
“I didn’t even do that in court,” Jackson said. “I hope all involved understand my intentions were for me to die and that I would’ve never hurt anyone else. I’m so sorry to all who were affected by my actions, especially the officers that I pointed the gun at.”
