A West Virginia police officer who refused to shoot a man holding an unloaded gun was fired for not pulling the trigger, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
Then-Weirton police officer Stephen Mader was let go after a May 6 incident in which he said he tried to talk Ronald D. “R.J.” Williams Jr. out of harming himself.
“I thought I was going to be able to talk to him and deescalate it,” Mader, an ex-Marine, told The Post-Gazette. “I knew it was suicide-by-cop.”
Mader said even though he didn’t know Williams Jr.’s gun was unloaded at the time, the man had the gun at his side and was not pointing it at the officer. He also knew that he had been called to the scene because of a domestic disturbance and Williams Jr. had only threatened to hurt himself.
“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,’” Mader said.
Eventually, two other officers arrived and one of them shot and killed Williams Jr., hitting him in the back of the head, just behind his right ear, The Post-Gazette reported.
The shooting was deemed justified, but Mader was terminated because he “failed to eliminate a threat,”
according to his June 6 termination letter.
The notice of termination included two other incidents in which the city believed Mr. Mader acted improperly including the failure to properly investigate a suspicious death and that Mader swore at a citizen.
While almost every news outlet is using this situation to further divide law enforcement and the community and claiming that Officer Mader is a victim, sources indicate that Mader’s initial assessment to not fire his weapon was not the reason he was terminated but rather he did not take action when Williams changed his behavior to a more aggressive, deadly demeanor.
When other responding officers arrived, Williams reportedly advanced upon the officers and allegedly “waved” his gun towards them in an aggressive manner.
Law enforcement understands that “suicide by cop” is homicide in less than a second. It is a nightmare of a call but one where the safety of law enforcement must take precedence.
We wish the best for Officer Mader. None of this takes away from his service to our country and his community. The court system is available for situations just like this. That is a place where evidence and facts will come out and decisions will hopefully be made based on those facts rather than emotion.
