Staff Photo by John Rawlston GBI crime scene investigator Audey Murphy photographs a bullet-ridden truck with a handgun on the roof in the parking lot of the Chick-fil-A restaurant in Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., on Wednesday, June 24, 2009. A man was killed during a confrontation with Fort Oglethorpe and Walker County Sheriff's Department officers at this location Wednesday morning. Fort Oglethorpe officer Mitchell Moore was shot in the incident but not seriously injured because his body armor deflected the bullet.

The man shot and killed during Wednesday's exchange of gunfire with law enforcement officers in Fort Oglethorpe had a history of threatening and harassing behavior, according to warrants taken out in Walker County.

John Curtis Coates, 34, of Rossville, was wanted on charges of aggravated stalking, harassing telephone calls and violating a temporary protective order, Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson said Thursday.

"There'd been some ongoing domestic issue problems where the sheriff's office was involved and interacted with Mr. Coates," Sheriff Wilson said.

Walker County Deputy Terry Miller tried to serve the warrant on Mr. Coates about 10 a.m. Wednesday in the parking lot of the Chick-fil-A on Battlefield Parkway. At the time, Mr. Coates told the deputy he would not go with him or to jail, police have said.

Deputy Miller called for back-up, and Fort Oglethorpe Officer Mitchell Moore responded. Both men encountered resistance from Mr. Coates, Sheriff Wilson said.

During a struggle with officers, Mr. Coates retrieved a handgun from his vehicle's glove box and fired, striking Officer Moore in the back. The bullet was deflected by his body armor, and he did not sustain serious injury.

Deputy Miller then fired his weapon and hit Mr. Coates, who was taken to Hutcheson Medical Center and pronounced dead, Sheriff Wilson said.

An autopsy was scheduled Thursday at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation crime lab in Decatur, Ga. The results were not immediately available.

The GBI is continuing its investigation, and investigators have not said how many shots were fired or where Mr. Coates was hit.

Phone numbers listed for Officer Moore and Deputy Miller had been disconnected Thursday. Fort Oglethorpe Police Chief David Eubanks said Thursday that he was busy and could not answer questions.

Policy allows the sheriff to use his discretion on a case-by-case basis in determining what happens to a deputy following a critical incident where force is used, Sheriff Wilson said. Deputy Miller was placed on reduced administrative duties for 72 hours and should return to normal duty Monday, the sheriff said.

From 1998 until 2006, more than one-third of North American shootings involving police were cases of "suicide by cop," according to a study published earlier this year in the Journal of Forensic Sciences.

The study's authors -- led by police and forensic psychologist Dr. Kris Mohandie -- reviewed police reports, witness statements and photographs, among other things, on more than 700 police-involved shootings. They determined that 36 percent of those involved people who wanted to be killed by law enforcement officers.

While some experts debate those statistics -- saying they're too high and that officers shoot others mostly during the commission of a crime -- no one questions the reasons people commit suicide by cop.

"The research on suicides says most people make their decision within 30 minutes of the event," said Dr. Gary Aumiller, executive director of the Society for Police and Criminal Psychology. "And suicide by cop, we seem to get a lot of people who make the decision further in advance.

"Generally what happens is someone doesn't want to do it themselves or has some kind of vendetta against police or wants them to kill him or wants there to be some kind of struggle," said Dr. Aumiller, whose office is in Hauppauge, N.Y.

The justification for using force does not make the situation easier, said Chattanooga Police Department Capt. Randy Dunn, who serves as the Southeast Tennessee coordinator for the state's Critical Incident Debriefing Team, run through the Tennessee Public Safety Network.

The critical incident team, although run in Tennessee, offers its services to any law enforcement officer who seeks it and provides trained law enforcement and mental health professionals to help officers cope with stressful situations.

"(Suicidal people) want to make us kill them so they don't feel so bad," Capt. Dunn said. "The officer that has to do it has to suffer through it, and he's still having to take a life."

Even with all the training officers undergo about making sound judgments based on fact and law, they still must make split-second decisions and constantly are second-guessed, Capt. Dunn said. Officers know they may encounter threatening suspects, but they never expect to take a life, he said.

"It's not that we're granting their wish," Capt. Dunn said. "We're having to protect ourselves or protect someone else."