Wife: Doctor planned on cops killing him

That has shed some light on why the Pima County Sheriff's Department responded as aggressively as it did to this crisis — a response questioned by friends and family of the physician, longtime Tucson obstetrician Dr. Frank Ruiz.

In her 911 call, the doctor's wife, Patricia Ruiz, said her husband was "barricaded" in his house, threatening suicide.

When asked by the 911 dispatcher if her husband would be "combative" toward responding deputies, she said, "Yeah sure. If he doesn't have the balls to kill himself, he'll start shooting at them so they can kill him."

As controversy swirled all week around the shooting of Ruiz — a doctor much loved by patients and admired by colleagues — the Sheriff's Department decided to release the audiotape of the 911 call.

Many, including the doctor's family and close friends, have questioned why a single SWAT team member, Sgt. John Stuckey, shot a suicidal man alone at his house with only a handgun.

Stuckey shot Ruiz from 30 to 35 yards away, behind a sheriff's vehicle, 45 minutes after the SWAT team reached the scene, officials have said. No other deputy fired in the incident.

In her 911 call, "Patty" Ruiz said she didn't know her husband was there when she showed up at the house around noon Monday. She said they had fought over the weekend, that he had struck her and kicked her out of their home.

"I went to the house to get my things … I walked around the house, and I walked up to the kitchen door not knowing he was in there, and he's sitting at the kitchen table writing a suicide note with a gun to his head," she said during the call.

She told the dispatcher he had a .40-caliber Berreta and possibly a .357 Magnum.

"He's been harassing me and harassing all kinds of people that he perceived I've had affairs with," she said to the dispatcher. She then described a recent incident when her husband had held her hostage and was threatening to kill her.

"He told me one time he had it all worked out in his head," she said. "He told me he was going to kill me, and he had it all worked out that if I called the cops he would kill me and then he would let them kill him."

The dispatcher stayed on the line with the sobbing woman for 20 minutes, asking questions and reassuring her until deputies arrived at the scene.

However, relatives remain angry at what they call an over-aggressive law-enforcement response to a suicidal crisis. They plan to file a claim of negligence against Stuckey and the department for "using excessive force," the family attorney said.

"When they are called by a wife concerned about a threat of suicide, it is incumbent on them not to treat this as a criminal with hostages," attorney Barry Davis said. "There is every indication they used those tactics."

Specifically, he questioned how a deputy stationed more than 30 yards away, behind a police vehicle, could feel threatened enough to shoot to kill a suicidal person who was alone.

"This is a man one-third of a football field away from the officer. To truly threaten someone with a handgun from that distance would require a very careful aim, and a stance to do it," he said. "How is it that this sergeant felt so threatened when a multitude of fellow officers in the area did not feel in immediate danger enough to shoot?"

But even bullets from a handgun can travel much farther than 30 or 35 yards, sheriff's Bureau Chief Rick Kastigar said.

Both Stuckey and a nearby officer who was negotiating with Ruiz felt endangered, Kastigar said. Only Stuckey fired because the other officer wasn't in position to do so, he said.

Officials also said Ruiz discharged his weapon five times in the presence of deputies, including shots into the dirt only 15 feet away from them.

Throughout all that, deputies held their fire. But when he leveled the handgun through a gate at Stuckey, the sergeant fired.

"The officers were threatened by deadly force, and they acted to stop that threat," Kastigar said.

After the shooting, Patty Ruiz was "extremely outraged" when she saw two deputies "high-fiving" each other, Davis said.

There were rumors that happened, Kastigar said. But if it did, it was because the officers felt relief after a tense situation.

He also said Stuckey fell to his knees and began sobbing after he fired, a lieutenant who witnessed the shooting said.

A sheriff's investigation will determine if procedure was followed, and the Pima County Attorney's Office will examine the shooting to determine if criminal charges will be filed, he said.

Two similar incidents have occurred this year, said sheriff's Capt. Oscar Miranda.

On Feb. 9, deputies went to a home west of the Tucson Mountains after a woman called concerned for her father.

Deputies made contact with the man, who was armed with a 9 mm handgun and threatening suicide. Deputies negotiated with him for more than 12 hours, and he eventually came outside without the firearm. Deputies shot him once in each leg with sponge rounds and released a dog to detain him.

And in an incident on March 15, deputies responded to a 911 call in which a man said he'd fired two rounds and that officers should respond so they could shoot him. Deputies were able to detain the man — barricaded in his home and armed with knives — after hitting him with a Taser, Miranda said.

"What was different about this situation is the weapon was pointed at the deputies," he said of the confrontation with Ruiz.

The doctor had suffered chronic, severe clinical depression throughout his life, including bouts of suicidal threats, said Dr. John Hesser, a Tucson maternal-fetal specialist who had worked with Ruiz and was his best friend for two decades.

There were problems and crises in the Ruizes' 25-year marriage, which Hesser called "stormy and passionate."

"Was he St. Francis? No. But Frank would never hurt anybody else," said Hesser, who talked with Ruiz at work Monday, just hours before his death, as his depression escalated.

"I have talked with Frank many times about suicide — when he would say things like, 'I might as well not be here, maybe things would be better without me' — but 'suicide by cop' is a term he never used."

"On that day, he kept asking the cops to leave him alone, to go away, and if they had backed off and waited him out, none of this would have happened."

Authorities released a partially completed suicide note, in which Ruiz asked for his wife's forgiveness and urged her to move on with her life.

Since the shooting, many of Ruiz's patients have described him as exceptionally kind and caring and said they never saw any hint of trouble in his life.

"Frank could keep up an incredible front," Hesser said. "Only his closest friends and family knew of his anguish. He dealt with it by burying himself in his work, in his patients.

"But it was getting worse. In these last days, he was sinking deeply into severe depression, and sinking rapidly."