Clifford Knauss

Every value below is shown exactly as Fatal Encounters recorded it.^[1]

Name as recorded

Clifford Knauss

Age as recorded

81

Gender as recorded

Male

Race as reported

Race unspecified

Date of the injury resulting in death

January 30, 2006

Location as recorded

Denville, Morris County44 Florence Ave Denville NJ 07834 Morris

Highest level of force as recorded

Gunshot

Agency or agencies involved, as recorded: Denville Police Department

An agency appears here because it appears in the record's as-reported agency field, nothing more. Its presence is not a claim of fault or responsibility.

Fatal Encounters' description of the incident, verbatim. This is the source project's own third-party narrative, not this site's reporting.

Clifford Knauss, 81, asked his wife if she wanted to die with him, then walked into his backyard and fatally shot himself in front of eight Denville police officers with guns drawn, demanding he drop his weapon. Knauss, a retired gas station owner and mechanic, pointed the World War II-era 9mm semi-automatic pistol at his chest and pulled the trigger at about 9:48 a.m. Allegedly, he thought he was going to get caught for asking multiple insurance agencies to pay for his prescriptions.

Source reported by Fatal Encounters: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_0epMmrz4NjttTMnow3ll9uD43wCbSce2ERecB5h48o/edit?usp=sharing (external link, as recorded in the dataset).

What does the Fatal Encounters dataset record about this incident?

Fatal Encounters records that Clifford Knauss died on January 30, 2006 in Denville, Morris County, with "Gunshot" as the highest level of force. Fatal Encounters is an independent, crowdsourced dataset of deaths that occurred during police encounters of any kind; a record is not a finding of fault or misconduct.

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Which agency or agencies were recorded as involved?

The record's agency field reads "Denville Police Department". Presence in that field means the agency appears in the record as reported, nothing more; it is not a claim of fault or responsibility by any officer or agency.

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Where did this happen?

The record places the death in Denville, Morris County, on January 30, 2006. The address as recorded is 44 Florence Ave Denville NJ 07834 Morris.

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Does this record mean police caused or were at fault for this death?

No. Fatal Encounters documented deaths that occurred during police encounters of any kind, including vehicle pursuits and crashes, suicides that occurred in police presence, and medical emergencies. This record documents that a death occurred during an encounter; it is not a finding of fault, misconduct, or wrongdoing, and it has no connection to the discipline records elsewhere on this site.

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