A Military-Trained Policeman, Fired for Being Less Hasty to Shoot
npr.org
npr.org
What a powerful quote. It should be repeated to regular cops every day of their training. Because it seems like they've given up on that type of thinking a long time ago. Shoot first, ask questions later.
This cop needed to be fired. Human action is faster than reaction. A person holding an un-holstered weapon down at their side can draw, fire, and get 2-3 accurate shots off, before someone who is aiming down the sights, ready to fire, can recognize the movement and fire his own weapon.
Use of force is judged by what the officer knew at the time, and what a reasonable officer would have done with that experience. Dude has a gun, is raising the gun at you. Yeah, its probably a suicide by cop. If its not, or if hes tired of you not killing him, he will kill you before you can do anything about it. Now you have a dead police officer, and the murderer has an extra gun, extra ammo, etc.
This guy needed to be fired. Some of the best cops I have seen have been military/combat vets. Some of the worst have been as well. It is my understanding he had other issues than just this situation, but I can't cite that at the moment
Officer Mader responded to a deceased body, and determined the cause of death was natural causes, and treated the scene as such. Turns out the victim died of blunt force trauma to the head, neck and body, and the scene should've been treated as a crime scene. Unsure on his state.
On a separate incident, Mader swore at person in a vehicle before performing an illegal search of the vehicle, lacking probable cause or a search warrant. The city claims they offered him the opportunity to appeal, and as far as I know the ACLU still hasn't picked up his case.
Mader wanted to do the right thing in the incident reported in the OP, but sadly that kind of thing gets more people killed. You have a mentally distraught man with a gun, a 911 hangup from the same residence from a female, and the guy is now literally waving the gun around, and you still haven't addressed the threat. If you wait for him to aim down the sites, you are too late, and people die.
[1]http://www.heraldstaronline.com/news/local-news/2016/09/weir...
I agree that use of force may have been justified. I do not think the cop should have been fired. If you're going to fire cops for not shooting fast enough, you need to also fire them for what often looks like murder.
Cops are quick to jump in and defend the department for firing this guy, but when is the last time you've seen a cop speak out against an unjust shooting?
Maybe if "suicide by cop" wasn't such a guaranteed outcome for brandishing a weapon near a police officer, people would be less inclined to attempt it.
This cop tried to treat the victim like an actual human being in distress and got fired for it. Guy that popped off 4 shots gets praised for being a "good cop".
The article implies that he was fired for a totality of events prior to this incident, including interference with a crime scene, an illegal search, and cursing at a citizen. It appears his department is using this incident as the "final straw" to be able to let him go. If all of those other incidents are true, I don't believe he should be a police officer, despite my feeling that he acted correctly in initially trying to de-escalate the situation with the armed subject.
The other alleged professional shortcomings were of a very different nature and that won't work well in court.
I know the media likes to represent police departments as hiding their repeat offender employees behind "the blue shield", but every law enforcement agency I've worked for (three including the one I'm currently at) have strict policies about officer conduct. You screw up more than a couple of times, or you really screw up by causing or allowing a citizen or other officer to be hurt or killed, and your career is over.
When driving, traveling at 60mph, you have 10+ milliseconds to react, often that's not enough time. However, if you have a gun trained on me, with your freaking finger on the trigger, and it takes about 10ms to pull it, There is no way the typical meth head can whip out a holstered gun and shoot 2-3 people before you can squeeze that hair trigger. The fact that cops want put push that as the "fact of the matter" is sad, and pathetic. Go ahead and keep justifying your murder.
Truth be told, most cops are probably scared shitless because your bosses push this bullshit about millisecond accuracy and military precision in thought and action, and it's your bosses that really cause this death-toll, it's best you just quit repeating their crap and focus on reality.
Even so, that information may or may not have saved the subject's life. The IC could have decided the information is unsubstantiated and not have relayed it to the responding officers, or if he had relayed it, the one who took the fatal shot may still have felt enough of a threat to take the same action.
One more thing: I feel that Mader (the cop who initially responded) acted correctly in trying to talk the subject down, but when the man started raising the hand with the gun, Mader would have been justified if he had fired his weapon as well (remember, no cop on the scene knew the gun wasn't loaded).