Officer Kills Himself in Casino

.c The Associated Press

By JIM SUHR

DETROIT (AP) - After losing thousands of dollars in a day of gambling at Detroit's brand-new casinos, off-duty police Sgt. Solomon Bell tried one last high-stakes hand of blackjack.

He lost.

The decorated officer abruptly stood up from the table, cried out ``Noooooo!,'' drew his gun and put a bullet in his head as other gamblers scrambled for safety.

The death - believed to be the first suicide inside a U.S. gambling hall - has highlighted concerns about casino gambling in a city pinning much of its hopes for revival on three new casinos.

``I predicted this is the kind of problem we would face because of the addictiveness of gambling,'' said City Councilwoman Maryann Mahaffey.

Bell's death on Wednesday was shocking to people who knew him. They said the 38-year-old officer was a jovial fellow with few visible problems - gambling or otherwise.

He joined the Oak Park force about 12 years ago and rose from uniformed patrol officer to investigator, sergeant and patrol supervisor. His service record was unblemished.

In 1988 and 1990, he got merit awards for arrests in stolen-vehicle cases, said Bob Bauer, the department's deputy director.

``I just describe him as a good guy,'' Bauer said.

Away from his $63,675-a-year job, the unmarried Bell kept mostly to himself and took meticulous care of his house in nearby Southfield. He owned a 1995 Cadillac Seville and liked to rollerskate.

Co-workers said they knew he occasionally gambled, but never saw signs of a problem.

Then, on his day off, authorities said he lost $15,000 to $20,000 at the MGM Grand Detroit Casino, which opened in July, and the 6-week-old MotorCity Casino.

At MotorCity, spokesman Jack Barthwell said, Bell tried various blackjack tables in the high-stakes VIP room before losing roughly $4,000 on a single hand at a $100-minimum game.

Bell then pulled his gun and fired a shot into his temple so abruptly the few players and about 20 casino workers on the fourth floor had no time to intervene, Barthwell said.

As his body lay on the floor near the table, gamblers on lower floors continued playing. The VIP room where Bell died reopened five hours later.

``We felt it was important to get it opened and return things to normal,'' Barthwell said.

On Thursday, a 37-year Detroit firefighter threatened to kill himself at the MGM Grand Detroit while playing blackjack. Police, alerted by the dealer, took the man into custody for treatment at a crisis center.

City Councilwoman Kay Everett said the suicide should not cast a pall over the casinos. ``One person deciding to have their own demise should not be the demise of the casino. That's ludicrous,'' Everett said.

Carol O'Hare, executive director of the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling, said she knows of no previous suicide committed inside a U.S. casino, though there have been suicides associated with gambling halls.

In August, a German tourist jumped to his death from the roof of the nine-story Resorts Atlantic City parking garage in New Jersey, making him the third suicide at a casino building there in eight days. A gambler who lost $87,000 at the tables jumped off a Trump Plaza roof, and a Caesars Atlantic City Hotel Casino dealer leaped from the casino's parking garage.

The National Council on Problem Gambling, citing various studies, said one in five pathological gamblers attempts suicide. A 1998 Harvard Medical School study estimated that 1.6 percent of adults in the United States and Canada had experienced pathological gambling at some point in their lives.

``Short of someone leaving a note that `The reason I killed myself is ...,' there's a lot of armchair detective work to determine what chain of events caused someone to do that,'' O'Hare said. ``Frequently, what you have is things playing together. Many times you have drinking problems or marital problems.''

A third temporary casino is expected to open in Detroit this spring. Larger, permanent casinos with hotel rooms, showrooms and other amenities are expected to open by 2004.

AP-NY-01-27-00 1714EST

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