SUN INVESTIGATES Finding could cost Suiter’s family

Panel’s suicide ruling may mean loss of more than $500,000 in benefits

For the family of Detective Sean Suiter, an independent panel's finding that he took his own life could mean the loss of more than half a million dollars in benefits, workers’ compensation and pension payouts that accrue to police officers killed in the line of duty.

Suiter was fatally shot in a vacant lot in West Baltimore in November. The medical examiner’s office ruled his death a homicide, but after reviewing the evidence the panel concluded that Suiter actually took his own life while making it look as though he had been killed by an attacker.

In a report the panel issued this week, its members said Suiter, a father of five, had an incentive to obscure the way that he was killed.

“Detective Suiter was no doubt aware that the BPD benefits package available to his family for a police officer who is killed in the line of duty is far more lucrative than the entitlements for a police officer who has taken his life,” they wrote.

Suiter’s widow, Nicole Suiter, has rejected the panel’s findings, saying she believes her husband was murdered and that his killing is being covered up.

So what are the families of police officers killed in the line of duty generally entitled to? And how might a finding that he killed himself affect those benefits?

A U.S. Department of Justice program provides a $350,000 cash payout for the family of officers killed in the line of duty, and $1,000 a month in higher education tuition assistance to their children. It would be up to Suiter’s family to prove that his death qualified for the payments, and federal law says the money is unavailable if the death was caused “by such officer’s intention.”

The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services administers a program that provides a $158,000 payment to the families of fallen officers. Department spokesman Gerard Shields said the money is not paid in cases of suicide. Nothing has been paid yet to Suiter’s family and Shields said the department is “waiting for an official decision from the Baltimore police on whether they consider the death in the line of duty.”

The family of an officer killed on duty could apply for workers’ compensation, worth up to $1,000 a week, but a suicide would not be covered. It’s up to the family to apply and make the case that they qualify. H. Scott Curtis, an attorney for the Workers’ Compensation Commission, said Suiter’s family hadn’t filed a claim.

The Baltimore Police and Fire Retirement System pays back the pension contributions of officers killed on the job to their families and also pays a pension equal to the officer’s salary — that’s $79,000 a year in Suiter’s case. It’s not clear how a determination that Suiter killed himself would affect his case, and the status of his pension wasn’t clear.

Any life insurance policy Suiter had generally would be required to pay out even in the case of suicide, as long as it had been in effect for two years.