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[GrizzleBoy]

An officer was called to deal with an erratic man with a gun, who turned out to be trying to use an unloaded gun to commit suicide by cop.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jek6XusdOwM


http://www.post-gazette.com/local/region/2016/09/11/Weirton-fired-officer-who-did-not-fire-at-man-with-gun/stories/201609090080

After responding to a report of a domestic incident on May 6 in Weirton, W.Va., then-Weirton police officer Stephen Mader found himself confronting an armed man.

Immediately, the training he had undergone as a Marine to look at “the whole person” in deciding if someone was a terrorist, as well as his situational police academy training, kicked in and he did not shoot.

“I saw then he had a gun, but it was not pointed at me,” Mr. Mader recalled, noting the silver handgun was in the man’s right hand, hanging at his side and pointed at the ground.

The man was Ronald D. “R.J.” Williams Jr., 23, of Pittsburgh, and what happened in the seconds after Mr. Mader’s initial decision is still being investigated by Mr. Williams’ family as well as the West Virginia Civil Liberties Union.

Mr. Mader, who was standing behind Mr. Williams’ car parked on the street, said he then “began to use my calm voice.”

“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.

But just then, two other Weirton officers arrived on the scene, Mr. Williams walked toward them waving his gun — later found to be unloaded — between them and Mr. Mader, and one of them shot Mr. Williams’ in the back of the head just behind his right ear, killing him.

A month-long West Virginia State Police investigation later concluded the shooting was justified, a decision the Hancock County, W.Va., prosecutor, Jim Davis, announced at a news conference on June 8.

But a case that has been handled by local law enforcement from the first day on with some peculiar twists - failing to publicly name Mr. Williams for three days, the assignment of an investigator who left for a week-long vacation the next day and tension with Mr. Williams’ family — only got more peculiar.

Mr. Mader — speaking publicly about this case for the first time — said that when he tried to return to work on May 17, following normal protocol for taking time off after an officer-involved shooting, he was told to go see Weirton Police Chief Rob Alexander.

In a meeting with the chief and City Manager Travis Blosser, Mr. Mader said Chief Alexander told him: “We’re putting you on administrative leave and we’re going to do an investigation to see if you are going to be an officer here. You put two other officers in danger.”

Mr. Mader said that “right then I said to him: ‘Look, I didn’t shoot him because he said, ‘Just shoot me.’ ”

On June 7, a Weirton officer delivered him a notice of termination letter dated June 6, which said by not shooting Mr. Williams he “failed to eliminate a threat.”

The notice of termination included two other incidents in which the city believed Mr. Mader acted improperly: An incident in April where neither he nor two other more experienced officers - the same two who were involved in the Williams’ case - reported as suspicious the death of an elderly woman who appeared to have had a stroke and fallen in her home, though no one has been charged in her death; and an incident in March when a woman complained that Mr. Mader was rude and swore at her when she asked why her husband was being arrested for disorderly conduct over receiving a parking ticket.

So people obviously get upset he's fired for this, the chief states he was fired for other stuff, not this incident?

Okay, so anything more to that?

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/region/2016/09/14/Weirton-city-manager-says-officer-let-go-for-other-incidents-not-for-holding-fire/stories/201609140102

The incident that occurred that evening [on May 6] was not a primary factor in his termination,” he said.

He said Chief Alexander had already recommended Mr. Mader’s termination prior to the death of Mr. Williams because of two prior incidents.

One occurred in March, when a woman complained that Mr. Mader swore at her after she asked why her husband was being arrested for disorderly conduct over receiving a parking ticket. The other was in April, in which neither he nor, as it turned out, the same two officers reported the death of an elderly woman who appeared to have had a stroke and fallen, as suspicious, though no one has been charged in her death.

Mr. Mader said Tuesday that the investigative report that he received with his notice of termination June 7 is four pages long, and nearly two full pages detail his failure to shoot Mr. Williams. He said it includes just two sentences on the other two incidents. He said he was never told prior to May 6 that he was facing possible termination.

After the other two incidents, he said, he received no discipline other than “just a verbal, ‘Make sure you’re watching what you’re doing,’” that a probationary officer would typically receive. He had been hired in July 2015 and was still on probation.

So after never really being reprimanded, if at all for these prior offences, they're suddenly a primary reason for firing a new officer still on probation.

So you can literally kill people with full backing of the state, break a guys back and kill him by shoving him in the back of a van with no seatbelt, murder as many unarmed people as you want as long as you feel 1% threatened, but supposedly swear during an arrest and your career is over, thrown under the bus?

Okay.gif

There's obviously no systemic issue with policing, just a few bad apples.

At least Weirton Pd is putting in the good work to get rid of them!

 

[The Faceless Master]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1278033