Ex-FBI hostage negotiator: Dead Oregon militant who 'charged' at officers fits 'suicide by cop' profile

Former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss noted on Wednesday that a militant leader who was killed by law enforcement probably intended to create a "suicide by cop" situation.

Fox News host Jenna Lee noted during an interview with Voss that some of the militants occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge had claimed that Robert "LaVoy" Finicum had his hands up when he was shot on Tuesday. But other witnesses had contradicted those reports.

"We've known for a long time in law enforcement that suicide by cop, one of the primary earmarks of that is provoking a deliberate confrontation with police," Voss explained. "If you intentionally go some place the police have told you not to go, you are provoking that confrontation. And it's very clear that's what they did here."

"They were trying to spread this protest, this unlawful activity, to another area," he observed. "Law enforcement very clearly told them not to go... and that is a well-known marker of suicide by cop."

Voss recalled that Finicum had expressed thoughts of suicide and had said that he would "prefer to die" than go to jail.

"And those are the beginnings of an articulated vision that he expected to die," he continued. "More than likely, he said some other things to family members that would foreshadow that he expected this provocation to go through. And actually, he probably wouldn't have had it any other way."

In a video recorded a day before Finicum was killed, the militant leader opined that the government agents "do not intend on losing here."

"And we do not intend to give it back to them," he said.

According to The Oregonian, witnesses said that Finicum was "charging" at officers when he was killed.

Watch the video below from Fox News, broadcast Jan. 27, 2016.