Cop Fired for Failing to Shoot

by Jack

Every day somewhere across America cops must make a life or death decision in a split second. When it’s the right decision, it’s rarely a news worthy, but when it’s a wrong decision or a questionable decision, it seems like the whole world will soon know because that’s news! Such was the case for a police officer in West Virginia.

“A West Virginia police officer was reportedly fired after not shooting an armed man during an incident in May.

Then-Weirton police officer Stephen Mader was involved in a heated exchange with Ronald D. Williams, 23, of Pittsburgh, who then brandished a gun and told Mader to shoot him, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Sunday. Williams was black.

Mader, a former Marine, told the paper he had used training from his time in the military and his situational training in the police academy to assess the situation.

“I told him, ‘Put down the gun,’ and he’s like, ‘Just shoot me.’ And I told him, ‘I’m not going to shoot you brother.’ Then he starts flicking his wrist to get me to react to it. I thought I was going to be able to talk to him and deescalate it. I knew it was a suicide-by-cop situation.”

Out of nowhere, two other Weirton officers arrived at the scene. The paper reported that Williams walked toward them waving his gun and one of them shot Williams in the back of the head, killing him.

Williams’ gun was found to be unloaded.”

Mader was fired in large part for placing his fellow officers in a life threatening situation. But, this rookie officer had made several other serious mistakes in judgement and when the Chief reviewed all the facts to determine the big picture, he determined that Mader just wasn’t cut out for this job. The Chief felt Mader was a risk to himself and to other officers and thus the community. Now we must rely on the judgement and wisdom of the chief and more experienced officers that presented evidence against Mader retention. It’s not an easy call because so many thing involved in the use of proper judgement are [subjective] and are best known only to the officer right there in that moment. Yep, it’s a tough job.