Tulsa Sheriff Deputy Spares the Life of Mentally Unstable Man

12/14/2017

KOTV news tells the story of a female deputy who put away her handgun and opted for the taser, when a man attacked her with knives.
When the man begs for her to shoot him, it was clear in her mind that this fella was initiated what is known as "Suicide By Cop".
It's one of the hardest things for a career peace officer to deal with. They are met with a crisis and split seconds to react. Self preservation set in and they do as they are trained to. Only in the aftermath investigation do they ever find out exactly what factors set up the lethal outcome. KOTV's Amy Slanchik provides this story. Please follow it on their media site.

The deputy was on her way home from work when the scene unfolded at 5th and Denver. Deputy Catherine Curtin deployed a Taser on Timothy Worsham after she said he came toward her with two butcher knives.

Aside from a bruise after the fall, he's OK and so is she.
"God was certainly looking out for him and me," Deputy Catherine Curtin said.

On her way home from work Monday night someone got her attention at 5th and Denver, telling her about a man in the street with knives.

"I honestly thought, as soon as I saw him sitting there with those knives, 'Oh my gosh. This is gonna be bad. It's gonna end horribly,'" Curtin said.

As she got out of her patrol car she said her gun was ready.

"I might have to shoot and kill him. And I really didn't want to have to do that," Curtin said.

She quickly realized this was an attempt at suicide by cop, something she's never dealt with in her 18 years with the sheriff's office.

"'Shoot me. Kill me. Shoot me. Kill me,' over and over. and I was giving him commands to stop, drop the knives," Curtin said.

Curtin said it's hard to pinpoint exactly how she came to her next decision to trade her gun for her Taser.

"I don't consider myself a very religious person but I certainly, that night, thought, 'This definitely was a hand-of-God moment,'" Curtin said.

And while Worsham was arrested, he's alive.

Which Curtin said may not have been the case if it weren't for that moment.

"He asked me, 'Why didn't you just shoot me? Why didn't you kill me?' And I said, 'Tomorrow is another day,'" Curtin said. "Today may be a horrible day. But in the light of tomorrow, it may be a totally different situation."

The sheriff's office said while every patrol deputy has a Taser, not every deputy has one, so it could have been a much different story had Curtin not been there.

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