It happens dozens of times each year during jittery hostage dramas and routine traffic stops: desperate people lure police officers into shooting them in a phenomenon known in law-enforcement circles as suicide by cop.

Experts say it is every police officer's nightmare: a person with a death wish provoking police to pull the trigger.

They call it police-assisted suicide or suicide by cop, and they and say it's occurring with increasing frequency. Last week, it happened in Fresno when a man used a toy pistol to trick an officer into shooting him.

Haug was also worried about ''suicide by cop'' — the term used when a person intent on suicide intentionally starts a shoot-out that he knows he will lose.