Trying to picture how a police officer/peace officer could be considered to be “in the course of performing his or her official duties” when the officer is committing or attempting to commit suicide. The “official duties” aspect would seem to imply that these sections also relate to killing someone else.
Sometimes I wonder if it may be a conscious or unconscious move to avoid being seen as* advocating* teen sex. But so often they also portray other elements of civil, criminal and administrative law and the functioning of public services and entities as if everywhere were California, that it’s more likely just feeling it would be too much trouble to explain that “in [Maryland/NYC/Florida], it’s different!”.
I don’t know about American law, but in French law, the equivalent of “in the course of performing his or her official duties” could be understood rather broadly. So I’m not convinced it wouldn’t be the same under American law. I can see “sitting at his desk at the police station playing Tetris” falling under this clause, for instance.
No wonder all of my suicide attempts have been so unsuccessful … and made so many people mad at me!
I should like to see what kind of messed up childhood the prosecutor had for charging a kid like that