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Police Officer Fired... for ?NOT? shooting armed black man?

sao123

sao123

Lifer
I find this story very disturbing to say the least... http://www.post-gazette.com/local/r...not-fire-at-man-with-gun/stories/201609090080

Seems to me the original officer was in the right to not shoot the man, He was trying to prevent a suicide by cop situation. If he ever felt threatened, im sure he would have shot. Likewise I'm not sure I fault the other office who made the decision to shoot, as he didn't have all the information as the first officer.

I do however take issue with firing the policeman who tried to deescalate the situation... I feel this is an improper way to handle such a thing. We don't need a shoot first mentality in the police force, as that rises tensions between the police and the community. This is just a bad situation all around.

Title changed to reflect reality. The man was armed.
admin allisolm
 
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if only we had more police officers like Stephen Mader, this country would be better for it. i say he should get a medal of honor.
 
Wow, I thought I read it all, seen it all, but what the other officers did (shooting the man trying to commit suicide in the head), made me gasp out loud. Sad.
 
You heard it from the fired cop himself: "They were justified". He just disagrees that he did anything wrong in not shooting the imminent the threat immediately. In fact, the only reason he gave for not eliminating the imminent threat was "he told me to shoot him"..."so I didn't". If the threat had begged for his life, he'd have shot him immediately- He's just such a badass, that he refuses to do what anyone tells him, even if that means risking a man imminently threatening his life, by his own definition.

Good shoot (the firing of this cop)
 
FIVR said:
You heard it from the fired cop himself: "They were justified". He just disagrees that he did anything wrong in not shooting the imminent the threat immediately. In fact, the only reason he gave for not eliminating the imminent threat was "he told me to shoot him"..."so I didn't". If the threat had begged for his life, he'd have shot him immediately- He's just such a badass, that he refuses to do what anyone tells him, even if that means risking a man imminently threatening his life, by his own definition.

Good shoot (the firing of this cop)
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Nice job selectively quoting the article. He also says he took more into account like the fact that the gun was not being pointed at himself or anyone else. It was being pointed at the ground:

“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.
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FIVR said:
You heard it from the fired cop himself: "They were justified". He just disagrees that he did anything wrong in not shooting the imminent the threat immediately. In fact, the only reason he gave for not eliminating the imminent threat was "he told me to shoot him"..."so I didn't". If the threat had begged for his life, he'd have shot him immediately- He's just such a badass, that he refuses to do what anyone tells him, even if that means risking a man imminently threatening his life, by his own definition.

Good shoot (the firing of this cop)
Click to expand...

Justified does not mean necessary. The man with the gun was not in imminent threat. Don't use words or phrases you don't understand. Things could have gotten worse, or they may have turned out fine. Just because in your subjective opinion it was going to happen does not make it reality. Facts don't care about you feelings and for good damn reason.

This cop was trained and had field experience that the vast majority of cops do not have. In his professional opinion he had a chance to deescalate without having to kill the man. He had information that the other officers did not have. Unfortunately when his supporting officers approached they did not have that information and used their training and made the judgement that for them it was too much of a risk. Nothing wrong with what they did, but had they known the information the first officer did, they may not have shot so quickly.

A person who is telling the cop to shoot him is a wild card. He is not in a healthy state of mind and people in that state can do dangerous things. They may also back down. If the guy really wanted to die, he could have used his gun on himself. If he had wanted to shoot someone he could have. At that point in time he did neither, which means there was likely an opening to deescalate.

So no dummy, the shooting was not required, but it was justified.
 
realibrad said:
Justified does not mean necessary. The man with the gun was not in imminent threat.
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If I was engaged with a disturbed stranger with a gun in his hand within easy shot range, I would consider him an imminent threat. All the guy had to do was lift the gun and pull the trigger. That can be done in less than a second.
 
bshole said:
If I was engaged with a disturbed stranger with a gun in his hand within easy shot range, I would consider him an imminent threat. All the guy had to do was lift the gun and pull the trigger. That can be done in less than a second.
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That is your opinion though. You are not trained to read body language like he was, and he has field experience. Again, you would not be wrong for shooting, but its up to the officer and his judgement as to the risk. Imminent is to imply that it was going to happen if nothing was done, and we simply cannot know.
 
I think the premise here is that ONLY that officer in that position could have the information and training necessary to read that situation and make the decision he did. Other officers approached and made another decision based on a different perspective / different information. The problem here is the police chief "going after" the officer who did not shoot, as some way of vindicating those that did. The message it sends is "not shooting was wrong"... but who the hell is the police chief to second guess when he was not there?

And that is why we should not second guess that officer either.

So really, is it correct to fire the officer? Turns out the gun was empty... his "read" or instinct was correct. But he's punished for it.
 
Jaskalas said:
I think the premise here is that ONLY that officer in that position could have the information and training necessary to read that situation and make the decision he did. Other officers approached and made another decision based on a different perspective / different information. The problem here is the police chief "going after" the officer who did not shoot, as some way of vindicating those that did. The message it sends is "not shooting was wrong"... but who the hell is the police chief to second guess when he was not there?

And that is why we should not second guess that officer either.

So really, is it correct to fire the officer? Turns out the gun was empty... his "read" or instinct was correct. But he's punished for it.
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Yea, being a cop sucks in many ways. I would ALWAYS shoot a stranger with gun who wouldn't put the weapon down. I would never gamble my life that he wouldn't shoot me.... seen too many youtube videos for that. That is why I would make a terrible cop. I am way too chicken shit.

Unless this cop broke a specific procedure I am not quite clear why he was fired. Are they required to shoot an armed suspect no matter what?

I can smell a lawsuit coming from this. It could be quite expensive for the police department.
 
Roflmouth said:
Yes, what a loss to society this Mensa member was.
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Calling for help for mental health issues should not be a fucking death sentence.

I had to call the cops for help for my suicidal brother in Rhode Island -- I live in NJ. At the time, he was serving in the Navy and going to school. With all the shit that has/had gone on, I was sitting there wondering if I had condemned my brother to death or not. I had to explain to the person on the line that he may be armed with a knife and that I wasn't sure if he had a firearm made me incredibly worried. Well, long story short, it's been 2 years and he's working and going to school and getting mental health help.
 
I only heard about this the other day when it was updated with the settlement. Just, unconsionable. This guy should be a squad leader and training new officers. He's better than all those officers that worked with him, and he gets fired for it.

I'm starting to think that you really need some kind of military/combat experience before you can qualify for officer training. ....that probably sounds a little crazy, but I was reading recently that such veterans tend to make far superior officers, simply because they have real experience with these situations and are very well trained to deal with this type of stress. They simply react differently, and far more effectively, when dealing with armed suspects.
 
Absolutely crazy, that sheriff should be run out of town. We need MORE cops that try to de-escalate situations, and I'm talking about all kinds of situations, but instead this asshole punishes one that does?!? There are thousands upon thousands of videos where cops make the situation worse by escalating the fuck out of it right from jump when if they actually tried to de-escalate it the situation would have worked out better for everyone including the cops.

At the end of the day I am quite sure the ex-cop is still happy with his decision. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live with killing a guy that I reasonably thought I didn't have to kill.
 
gradoman said:
Wow, I thought I read it all, seen it all, but what the other officers did (shooting the man trying to commit suicide in the head), made me gasp out loud. Sad.
Click to expand...

If you've read the article. the fired officer himself believes the other officers were justified in shooting the man because they arrived after and all they saw was him moving toward them waving a gun. They hadn't heard him say "just shoot me" like the first officer had. The shoot seems justified to me.

What doesn't seem justified is the firing of the first officer who arrived. Seems to me he was exercising sound judgment not to shoot based on his interaction with the man.
 
alien42 said:
if only we had more police officers like Stephen Mader, this country would be better for it. i say he should get a medal of honor.
Click to expand...
You did have more cops like that in the past, but cops like that have no place in a society that glorifies violence, promotes an ever increasing militarized police force along with militarized tactics, and being tough on crime as the defacto standard.
 
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