Current Events > Cop who was axed for not shooting black men wins big wrongful termination payout

(+) Yeah! (+)

A police officer who chose to calm an armed suspect down rather than shoot him has received a payout after he was sacked.

Stephen Mader, 27, used his military training to try and de-escalate the situation when he encountered visibly distraught RJ Williams, 23. Williams was shot dead by another officer who arrived at the scene later on. That officer was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Mader was responding to a domestic violence call on May 6, 2016, in West Virginia and he asked Williams to show his hands. When he did it became clear that he had a gun and Williams told him to drop it. Williams refused and he told the police officer to shoot him, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

They said: Rather than shoot, Mader returned to his military training and attempted to de-escalate the situation. He softened his voice, looked Williams in the eye and said: Im not going to shoot you, brother. Im not going to shoot you.

While Mader was negotiating with Williams, two other officers arrived on the scene. Williams raised his gun and one of the newly-arrived officers fired four shots, killing him, the ACLU said. The gun turned out to be unloaded.

City officials said Mader froze on the scene and was being fired for that reason. Mader will receive $175,000 for wrongful termination after filing a lawsuit against the city of Weirton, West Virginia.

Full Article: http://metro.co.uk/2018/02/13/police-officer-sacked-refusing-shoot-black-man-receives-payout-7308208/#mv-b



80/80

For the record, the average police salary is $56,000.

This guy got pretty much 3 years of pay.
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woot

He deserves it. Fuck rules when there was a better way to do things at that moment.
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legendarylemur posted...

He deserves it. Fuck rules when there was a better way to do things at that moment.

The counter argument is that if you fuck the rules then people die.

Imagine his hesitation caused the criminal with a gun to shoot 3 babies. Would you still defend his instinct there?

In Hollywood movies so long as everything works out in the end the Hero is allowed to break the rules. In reality the Hero still gets punished.

This is the logic that led to him being fired
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You can't equate the man putting 3 babies on hostage to a man by himself holding a gun that may not be armed. In real life, you can probably vaguely tell if a person is more likely to shoot or not. It takes greater courage to just bet on that small chance. It's their life that they've put on line when they signed up for the job vs theirs.

On the case of the babies, the person who didn't shoot put his life AND the babies against the life of the gunman. It's not the same thing
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