Mader said, ‘I saw then he had a gun, but it was not pointed at me. He said it was by the Williams’s side and pointing to the ground.
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Mr. Mader, who was standing behind Mr. Williams’ vehicle parked on the street, said he then “began to use my calm voice”. He was not threatening anyone with the weapon, and Mader did what I’ve been taught by my LEO trainers to do: he not only looked at the gun in Williams’s hand, but what he was (and wasn’t) doing with the handgun and Williams’s overall demeanor. Said the officer, “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'”. “I knew it was a suicide-by-cop” situation.
The notice of termination included two other incidents in which the city believed Mr.
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.
In that environment, it would seem likely that an officer whose first instinct was not to kill would be lauded. “You put two other officers in danger”, Mader recalled the chief saying. Williams, 23 and known as “RJ”, told the officer to “just shoot me”. Perhaps [the double-murder suspect] Wilcox would have surrendered to Kidder, but after chasing him for what appears to be at least 50 yards down the road, I rather doubt it. However, despite his explanation, Mader was sacked in June on the grounds that he “failed to eliminate a threat”.
It also mentioned other incidents in which the city deemed Mader behaved inadequately. According to the Gazette, Williams began to approach two other officers while waving his pistol, prompting one to fire, killing Williams with a shot to the head. That’s when his boss Rob Alexander, Weirton Police Chief, unexpectedly called him into his office. As reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the investigation had some unusual occurrences.
But Mader’s bosses determined his non-shooting was not.
He added: ‘All they know is [Williams] is waving a gun at them.
There comes a point in situations of potential violence that an officer has to make a decision to deploy violence in order to give himself, other officers, and the public they are sworn to protect the greatest chance of survival.
Mr. Mader, 25, thought his hiring by the city in July, 2015, in a job that would pay him about $34,000 the first year, would turn out to be a good move for him, his young family, and the city.
‘Not only do they think he should have been shot and killed, but shot and killed more quickly, an attorney for the family told the Post-Gazette.
After a few days off from work, Mader returned to work on May 17, but was asked to take leave.
The former police officer had served in the US Marine Corps for four years, including a tour in Afghanistan, before marrying his high-school sweetheart and moving back to his hometown to raise two children. Mader won’t be getting one.
He is now studying to get a commercial license to drive trucks, but would consider going back to law enforcement if he could.
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Mader was sent a termination letter which pointed out that he had “failed to eliminate a threat” – and told that as a probationary employee, he could be fired for any reason.
