Ex-cop sues man he saved from suicide

MORRISTOWN, N.J., Nov. 3 (UPI) -- A former New Jersey police officer has filed a lawsuit against a man he talked out of committing suicide.

Ron Nametko, who left his job as a police sergeant in Denville on disability, claims that the 45 minutes he spent with former Morris County Sheriff's Officer Patrick O'Connor traumatized him, the Star-Ledger of Newark reported.

Nametko was proclaimed a hero after the 2004 incident. O'Connor had a gun and told Nametko that he wanted to commit "suicide by cop" -- saying that if the police officer did not shoot him he would fire first so he would be shot by Nametko's colleagues.

The lawsuit also names O'Connor's neighbor as a defendant, claiming that Doug Wilkins told Nametko O'Connor was on the second floor of his house but not giving him the details.

"It strikes me as one of the strangest tort lawsuits I've ever heard of," George Thomas, a professor of criminal law at Rutgers Law School, told the newspaper.