Officer does not shoot black man; is fired

[Rogue 9]

NPR

Military-Trained Police May Be Less Hasty To Shoot, But That Got This Vet Fired
December 8, 20163:41 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition

There are plenty of recent stories involving white police officers who have shot and killed black men, including some who are on trial for those shootings. Then there's the case of a white cop who did not shoot a black man holding a gun — and it may have cost him his job.

It started with a 911 call for help in Weirton, W.Va., on May 6 at 2:51 a.m. An emergency dispatcher in turn put out a call for an officer.

"Had a female stating they needed someone right now. She sounded hysterical," the dispatcher said. "Hung up the phone, will not answer on call back."

Nearest to the address was Stephen Mader, a 25-year-old Marine Corps veteran and rookie cop who was alone in his squad car. He got to the house and saw Ronald D. Williams, a 23-year-old black man, standing outside with his hands behind his back.

"And I say, 'Show me your hands,' and he's like, 'Naw, I can't do that,' " Mader told NPR. "I said, 'Show me your f'ing hands.' And then he brings his hands from behind his back and puts them down to his side. And that's when I noticed he had a silver pistol in his right hand."

Mader didn't know it, but Williams' girlfriend, who was inside the apartment with their infant son, had called 911 again. She told the dispatcher:

"My ex-boyfriend's here. He has a gun. He doesn't have a clip in the gun. There's no clip in the gun. He's drunk. He's drunk. He took the clip out of the gun and he said he was going to threaten the police with it just so they would shoot him. He does not have a clip in the gun."

On the 911 tape you hear Officer Mader on the radio saying, "We have a gun here." All the dispatcher said to the cops is this: "Watch out for a weapon."

Mader drew his weapon and told Williams to drop the pistol.

"Aim in on him, and I say, 'Drop your gun. Drop your gun,' " Mader told NPR. "And he said, 'I can't do that. Just shoot me.' And I told him, I said, 'I'm not gonna shoot you, brother — just put down the gun.' "

So even though Mader didn't know what Williams' girlfriend told 911 — that the gun was empty and the man was trying to commit "suicide by cop" — Mader didn't shoot.

Police get trained on de-escalation, but in that moment Mader was leaning more on training from the Marine Corps and experience in Afghanistan. That knowledge can be a key difference between police officers with military backgrounds and those without.

"Before you go to Afghanistan, they give you training," Mader said. "You need to be able to kind of read people. Not everybody over there is a bad guy, but they all dress the same. That's kind of what the situation was that night."

Backup arrives

In Afghanistan, the rules of engagement sometimes were stricter than use-of-force rules for civilian police in America. Erica Gaston, a human rights lawyer who studied the military's rules of engagement in Afghanistan, said that especially was true in the later years of the war.

"There was an emphasis on winning hearts and minds, and focusing more on stabilizing communities and protecting the civilian population," Gaston said.

In Weirton, Mader still had those wartime rules in mind. The Marines had taught him to wait for clear hostile intent before opening fire, something he didn't see from Williams.

"For me, it wasn't enough to kind of take someone's life because they're holding a gun that's not pointed at me," Mader said.

But then — and this all happened in seconds — Mader's backup arrived. All they knew is that the dispatcher said there was a weapon. Mader remembers that Williams walked toward them as they drove up and got out of their cars.

"Their weapons are drawn, and they're screaming at him to drop the gun," Mader said. "At that point he starts waving the gun, back and forth between us."

One of the officers fired four shots, and a bullet hit Williams in the side of the head, leaving him on the pavement. The dispatcher called an ambulance, but the officers saw there was no hope in giving first aid. Mader went inside to check on the girlfriend and baby.

The gun did turn out to be empty, though Mader said the officers had no way of knowing that for sure.

He said that though he tried to talk to Williams one-on-one while he was there, when the other officers showed up, all they saw was someone waving a gun around.

"The one officer felt that his life was in danger, along with others', and he decided to fire at the subject," Mader said. "And I believe he was justified in what he did."

"A better understanding of rules of engagement"

What Mader thinks was not justified happened a few days later: Police Chief Rob Alexander told Mader that he was being fired for putting his fellow officers' lives in danger.

"When the officers arrived on the scene, they seen these two in a standoff pointing guns at each other, and that officer froze," Alexander said at a press conference in September.

But what Alexander characterizes as hesitation others may see as experience. Around the country, police chiefs who've hired war veterans have commented on their maturity and self-control when facing danger.

Dave Wilson, chief in the Wisconsin town of Shell Lake, an Iraq War veteran himself, said the vets he has hired make for ideal cops.

"If anything else, they have a better understanding of rules of engagement and use of force than others might," Wilson said. "They're used to seeing people holding guns, and they take the time to assess the real danger of the situation."

Researchers are starting to look at this, too. At Washington State University, Stephen James is part of an effort to test law enforcement officers' reactions in simulators, and one of the factors they're tracking is whether the officers are veterans. The data haven't been compiled, yet, but he said other studies of how the brain operates under pressure would suggest that veterans are more "patient."

"Combat vets who've been exposed to extreme violence have a different 'threat threshold,' " James said, "which means that they're in more control of their physiology, and they're not allowing this fight-or-flight response to drive them into action."

But in Weirton, officials said it wasn't just Mader's failure to shoot that got him fired. City Manager Travis Blosser said other reasons included "illegal searches in a vehicle, to the use of profanity with citizens and then also contaminating a crime scene of a potential homicide investigation."

The city manager and police chief would not comment further for this story.

West Virginia State Police Sgt. Jim Gibson, who led an investigation of the shooting, told NPR that he thought Mader believed he was doing the right thing — but that the town of Weirton was justified in deciding that for a variety of reasons, Mader wasn't cut out to be a policeman.

Mader said he still wants to be a cop and wishes things hadn't happened so quickly that night.

"If I had maybe 30 more seconds, maybe it would've went different," Mader said. "Maybe I could have talked him down and just put him in handcuffs that night."

The ACLU has been in touch with Mader, and he's considering legal action. In the meantime, he's supporting his wife and their two kids as a commercial truck driver.

[Solauren]

So, let me get this straight....

The United States army, stretched thin in the middle of occupying and pacifying a hostile country, are acting more like you'd 'expect' Andy Griffion type small town cops to act like, and it was more or less working.....

Meanwhile, the police in the United States, the ones that should be acting like Andy Griffion type small town cops are acting like a you'd 'expect' a stretched thin army in the middle of a occupying and pacifying a hostile country, AGAINST IT'S OWN CITIZENS?

Well, if that doesn't summarize part of the problems in the United States, I don't know what does.

[Joun_Lord]

I remember reading about this back when it happened. Some people made the comment that alot of cops play soldier, dress in fatigues, carry around castrated versions of military weapons, sometimes even ride around in surplus Humvees and APCs but they don't have the same training or experience as actual combat vets. That in some ways they act like what damn dirty civies think soldiering is like, think war is like. Every second is danger, everyone is hostile, and its shoot first or you will die.

Militarization of the police force is not the problem, police have pretty much always used surplus military stuff. The first uniforms NYCPD were left over Civil War Army uniforms. Yet they apparently weren't gung-ho in their attitudes, they apparently didn't have the same problems of soldiers today where cops act like wannabe soldiers?

Was it always a problem but just was never reported because of lack of media able to cover it or was there a change in attitude of the police themselves?

[The Romulan Republic]

No Country For Good Cops.

[Flagg]

No Country For Good Cops.

You, my son... Excuse me I'm tearing up... Are now... a man.

[Zixinus]

Joun_Lord, the problem in "militarization" isn't the use of military equipment: it is taking on military mindset in a non-military setting. Such as firing discipline. It is forgivable for a soldier on a battlefield to shoot first when encountering strangers with weapons, especially in the middle of fighting. It is less forgivable for a cop, who should be asking questions first.

The news article, if it is accurate and not just altering facts to follow a narrative, is stating that actual soldiers with battlefield experience have more firing discipline than cops. That is very alarming news and shows that there is definitely something wrong with the police.

[Flagg]

Joun_Lord, the problem in "militarization" isn't the use of military equipment: it is taking on military mindset in a non-military setting. Such as firing discipline. It is forgivable for a soldier on a battlefield to shoot first when encountering strangers with weapons, especially in the middle of fighting. It is less forgivable for a cop, who should be asking questions first.

The news article, if it is accurate and not just altering facts to follow a narrative, is stating that actual soldiers with battlefield experience have more firing discipline than cops. That is very alarming news and shows that there is definitely something wrong with the police.

That cops don't have as much firing discipline as soldiers isn't shocking to me. If a soldier breaks rules of engagement the military investigates and actively seeks to punish the person(s) responsible while if police shoot an unarmed person (or like in NYC hit half a dozen bystanders while trying to shoot someone in Times Square) there may be an investigation by internal affairs (or rat cops as many describe them) but even in the case of gross misconduct every attempt is made to justify the cops actions and the old blue wall of silence goes into effect.

[Highlord Laan]

I love how the mayor sees the "use of profanity with citizens" as more damming than rolling in and opening fire.

In Afghanistan, the rules of engagement sometimes were stricter than use-of-force rules for civilian police in America.

The main difference is that soldiers are trained to be professionals in a hostile and deadly field, while cops are average jackass civilians given a bare minimum of training to handle hostile actions, handed a gun, and sent out to keep the plebs in line.

[Flagg]

I love how the mayor sees the "use of profanity with citizens" as more damming than rolling in and opening fire.

Yeah, he's just lying. On every one of those police chase or cop documentary shows the police are always yelling profanity at suspects. Clearly if it was an actual issue, the camera crews wouldn't still be invited back to see the same old cops using the exact same profanity.

[Khaat]

The whole list just screams, "busted the mayor's brother for a DUI, found open container in the car, called him a fuck-up."

[TheFeniX]

The news article, if it is accurate and not just altering facts to follow a narrative, is stating that actual soldiers with battlefield experience have more firing discipline than cops. That is very alarming news and shows that there is definitely something wrong with the police.

The military is trained to deal diplomatically with an armed populace that is not hostile and also work with armed allies that aren't part of their organization. Stories of my buddies pulling into a town and being greeted by armed civilians and bullets being fired into the air in celebration were not uncommon.

Cops are not. Much of the training they have they get in Police Academy or College and "armed" is nearly always bad, the rest they pick up in the field by working with experienced officers, so they pick up the mentality quickly. Your higher-ups in the police force have been pushing deescalation for quite a while but they seem to be fought at every turn by the union because any accountability is bad, not because cops are corrupt but because "we know what we're doing, mind your own business."

CHL holders in many states went through harassment (for lack of a better term) from cops for more than a few years because cops just didn't like the idea of dealing with an armed person. They got used to it and incidents of harassment have dropped.

That cops don't have as much firing discipline as soldiers isn't shocking to me. If a soldier breaks rules of engagement the military investigates and actively seeks to punish the person(s) responsible while if police shoot an unarmed person (or like in NYC hit half a dozen bystanders while trying to shoot someone in Times Square) there may be an investigation by internal affairs (or rat cops as many describe them) but even in the case of gross misconduct every attempt is made to justify the cops actions and the old blue wall of silence goes into effect.

The military is a lot bigger than a local PD so your superiors might be located in a completely different area and the further you kick things up the Chain O' Command, you're dealing with people who might have no fucks to give about you. A Police Chief might not go out and walk a beat, but he still deals with rank and file Officers, especially in smaller districts. And you may not have his ear, but your Sargent does, Sheriff, watch commander, etc: and he's looking out for you.

The only real camaraderie my friends in the military talk about is between other elisted. Meanwhile, best that can usually be said about most COs is "guy/gal wasn't actively trying to get me killed."

Police Officers are also entitled to Union Representation and have to be charged under Civilian laws, not military. And since prosecutors and judges also play for the same team, this can create a large conflict of interest. From what I know, JAG officers don't deal with standard military forces on near the level prosecutors and judges do. And said military forces aren't who picks up the phone when they dial 9/11.

[Block]

I love how the mayor sees the "use of profanity with citizens" as more damming than rolling in and opening fire.

In Afghanistan, the rules of engagement sometimes were stricter than use-of-force rules for civilian police in America.

The main difference is that soldiers are trained to be professionals in a hostile and deadly field, while cops are average jackass civilians given a bare minimum of training to handle hostile actions, handed a gun, and sent out to keep the plebs in line.

Meh, unless it's changed significantly, Cops got more training than I did in Infantry school. I think the police academy is 6 months, boot camp was 3 and infantry school was another 8 weeks. Boot had fuck all to do with how to handle civilians and Infantry school was mostly about clearing urban environments. I don't think cops get enough credit for the training they do go through, although it's possible that not every jurisdiction requires attending an academy, which is silly, although given that no one wants to pay for the training to have a more professional police force...

[Thanas]

Don't really get why he deserved to get fired.

Certainly wouldn't have gotten fired in Germany, his actions are pretty much department policy AFAIK.

[LadyTevar]

Don't really get why he deserved to get fired.

Certainly wouldn't have gotten fired in Germany, his actions are pretty much department policy AFAIK.

That's the point. He should NOT have gotten fired, he had the situation under control until his fellow town cops showed up and decided to shot first and ask questions later. It was a "Suicide by Cop" situation, that's all there is to it.

Now, this happened in MAY. WV's news went ballistic with the whole mess, Weirton's phone lines tied up with angry phone calls, and that's when the BS about "cursed citizens" was added to the 'charges' against Mader. Several other towns around the state all called to offer him a job as Town Cop, but his family's all in Weirton area and he had a small child, so he stayed there, getting a job as a trucker.

I hope he sues the shit out of those assholes in Weirton, gets enough money that he doesn't have to work for a long time if he doesn't want to, and maybe get with the WV State Police. They could use a man like him.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I love how the mayor sees the "use of profanity with citizens" as more damming than rolling in and opening fire.

In Afghanistan, the rules of engagement sometimes were stricter than use-of-force rules for civilian police in America.

The main difference is that soldiers are trained to be professionals in a hostile and deadly field, while cops are average jackass civilians given a bare minimum of training to handle hostile actions, handed a gun, and sent out to keep the plebs in line.

Meh, unless it's changed significantly, Cops got more training than I did in Infantry school. I think the police academy is 6 months, boot camp was 3 and infantry school was another 8 weeks. Boot had fuck all to do with how to handle civilians and Infantry school was mostly about clearing urban environments. I don't think cops get enough credit for the training they do go through, although it's possible that not every jurisdiction requires attending an academy, which is silly, although given that no one wants to pay for the training to have a more professional police force...

Thing is, police training is more effective in some areas, and remarkably less in others. Infantry training is designed to get you willing to shoot someone who is an identified threat under a set of rules of engagement, and to do so accurately--and they dont use fear to do it. They use repetition and conditioning to overcome the inherent unwillingness to kill. And a large part of how it does that is to sublimate your individual identity into a group identity. There is a lot of psychological manipulation that makes it work (this is not a bad thing, just how it is).

Then once you go through an occupation, that training gets honed in a different direction. Some people are hostile and armed, some are friendly and armed, and you learn how to distinguish them.

Police training is different. They pair fear of death with the willingness to shoot, stress the uncertainty of civilian encounters etc.

The end result is that while a soldier might be scared, they are still rational when in a fight.

A police officer is operating on a fight or flight response when they get out of the damn car to execute a search warrant or hand out a speeding ticket.

[Flagg]

For me the worst part of this case is the total mindfuck of seeming to confirm peoples worst suspicions about the police shooting black people. I know that every jurismydicktion is pretty much an entity unto itself and policing is a hard job in a sea of grey, but fuck a duck 3 ways on Easter, if a cop shoots a black person who is unarmed they get surrounded by people defending their actions no matter how heinous, but a cop that goes out of their way to protect and serve a black male in mental distress gets shitcanned for not unloading on the guy. Did I wake up in Narnia?

[TheFeniX]

For me the worst part of this case is the total mindfuck of seeming to confirm peoples worst suspicions about the police shooting black people. I know that every jurismydicktion is pretty much an entity unto itself and policing is a hard job in a sea of grey, but fuck a duck 3 ways on Easter, if a cop shoots a black person who is unarmed they get surrounded by people defending their actions no matter how heinous, but a cop that goes out of their way to protect and serve a black male in mental distress gets shitcanned for not unloading on the guy. Did I wake up in Narnia?

Cops destroy their own once they stop drinking the koolaid. It's pretty fucking scary when they'll straight up disappear you. Cops get caught on tape (I posted one example in the Police Abuse thread) fabricating charges and no one gives a shit, it's no surprise that when given this amount of leeway they react the way they do. It takes a really stand-up person to not abuse the shit out of power when there's zero consequences for doing so.

I don't agree that police should be required to give a combative person with a gun a whole lot of leeway, even if he's not pointing it at them. But I also don't agree we should be firing cops for refusing to shoot anyone who's holding a gun in hand. But when we aren't firing cops for drawing guns on people who are on their own property and (ZOMG) have their hands in their pockets and then heckling said person for knowing their rights: we've got issues.

U.S. Police policy is generally shit. But you don't get fired for following policy, you get destroyed for ignoring it. So, it's actually no surprise the guy in the OP got shit-canned for trying to follow up on what his experience told him: It was outside the mentality of U.S Police training of the mere potential for the existence of a gun means everyone is armed."For Shelby, the potential threat of a weapon was a factor behind why she fired her weapon, her attorney said."

With reasoning like this and the training the comes along with it, you end up with bullshit like kids getting shot over Wii-Motes. EDIT: oh, and by the way: that cop faced no repercussions. /EDIT

U.S. Police act like they live in a country where rights don't exist and they have carte blanche to react with lethal force the moment they feel the least bit threatened. The problem is: those rights may as well not exist when "refuses to follow commands" is an instant invite to a dirt nap and the only one who pays is the dead guy, his family, and the taxpayers.

[Flagg]

When I lived in FL we had Orange County Sheriff deputies unloading and killing people for putting their car into reverse or reaching to unbuckle their seatbelt when ordered out of the car. And the SOP was that the Sheriff would hold a press conference telling us all how bad the unarmed nonthreatening person was and would say there was a gun in the car. Then the real story would trickle out about how they didn't have a gun, the deputy wasn't behind the backing up car, etc.

And then there was the case of a fit younger guy who took an old lady hostage in her house which was quickly surrounded by the police. Well, one of the snipers decided he had a shot and ended up blowing the elderly hostage's brains out. He got a few months suspension with pay while the coverup investigation was under way. He wasn't even kicked out of SWAT let alone fired or charged with negligent homicide. Instead he went back to the team as a sniper.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Thing is, police training is more effective in some areas, and remarkably less in others. Infantry training is designed to get you willing to shoot someone who is an identified threat under a set of rules of engagement, and to do so accurately--and they dont use fear to do it. They use repetition and conditioning to overcome the inherent unwillingness to kill. And a large part of how it does that is to sublimate your individual identity into a group identity. There is a lot of psychological manipulation that makes it work (this is not a bad thing, just how it is).

Then once you go through an occupation, that training gets honed in a different direction. Some people are hostile and armed, some are friendly and armed, and you learn how to distinguish them.

Police training is different. They pair fear of death with the willingness to shoot, stress the uncertainty of civilian encounters etc.

The end result is that while a soldier might be scared, they are still rational when in a fight.

A police officer is operating on a fight or flight response when they get out of the damn car to execute a search warrant or hand out a speeding ticket.

Well, police training focuses on indicators to assess threats and then that training is reinforced in the manner that you discussed. I think I may have left that out of our discussion on police training so I apologize.

Those indicators are failure to follow simple repeated commands. Moving hands towards pockets and waistband. Not paying attention to the officer while looking around. These indicators are paired with videos, stories, etc that show the consequences of failing to act decisively when those are displayed. Take the OP - there are so many examples of cops doing the same thing that Mader did. In those examples the person wants the cop to kill them because they're suicidal but they're also willing to kill to get that end result. So, they end up shooting the officer negotiating with them and then the other officers are guaranteed to open fire or will show up and open fire.

That's the point. He should NOT have gotten fired, he had the situation under control until his fellow town cops showed up and decided to shot first and ask questions later. It was a "Suicide by Cop" situation, that's all there is to it.

I agree. He shouldn't have gotten fired over that.

However, I do think people are just being dismissive over the other reasons stated for his termination and it seems like a lot of that has to do because they mentioned rude language as one of the factors but the other incidents are very serious. For example mishandling of evidence/contaminating a homicide crime scene is a serious violation in most departments. In my department mishandling of evidence in even low priority cases will get you put on a watch list that can lead to termination quickly. Fucking up an actual homicide scene would destroy your career here. Also, I'm sure everyone here agrees that illegal vehicle searches are not OK so I don't think we need to spend too much time discussing that.

What people here don't have experience with in the process it takes to get cops fired in locations with unions, etc. The department often has to create a case for termination showing multiple violations of policy and law. If the contamination of the homicide scene and illegal vehicle searches took place before this incident, which I imagine they did, then it is likely he was on a list for pending termination and this was just the final excuse they needed and they took it which is also often the case with departments that have strong unions or sympathies civilian government.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

As for the other comments in this thread mostly the generalization comments. I get it. I'm angry too. The mistrial of Slager, the slap on the wrist for the officers that shot up that Tacoma during the Dorner incident, and now thanks to Fenix I've learned that the idiot cop that shot Christopher Roupe for answering the door with a wii remote isn't being charged in a display of grand jury bullshit that takes the cake by far. It's disgusting. There are so many it's actually difficult to remember. That leads to these incorrect statements about police training and generalized statements about how things are handled. I get it.

To point out what I mean Fenix said "outside the mentality of U.S Police training of the mere potential for the existence of a gun means everyone is armed." I've never attended any police training that pushed that message. Even when they display indicators that they may have a weapon the response has never been trained to "point guns at them". The trained response is tell them to remove their hands from their pockets and then ask to check them for weapons. That's the trained response.

Sorry not picking on you Fenix it's just easier. "U.S. Police act like they live in a country where rights don't exist and they have carte blanche to react with lethal force the moment they feel the least bit threatened" Again, we get training weekly on civil rights and what we can and cannot do. Furthermore, opening fire on someone for failure to follow commands has only be trained when someone is actually armed WITH A FIREARM. I have attended training around the country and not once has the subject material been "When that suspicious person refuses to follow your commands to show you their hands you open fire on that son of a bitch".

Again, I get why you think this is the way it is because of the seemingly endless examples. Of course, I could counter each story talked about here with my own personal stories of my own conduct and the conduct of officers I work with that completely contradict your narrative here. This highlights the problem with this type of approach. It's not science. It's the equivalent of sharing anecdotal stories to back your position on something. Still, it's absolutely disgusting that those things have happened. One thing they do support is the lack of accountability and that's something that if I haven't conceded allow me to do so here. US police are generally not held accountable for mistakes that cost someone their life. It's really a bizarre world to because in many of those places cops get in trouble and lose their jobs for much less serious things but when they kill someone unjustifiably they suddenly gain god status.

Anyway, hopefully that was coherent as my battle with insomnia has peaked this month.

[Dragon Angel]

One thing that should be noted is different police departments have different policies and training regimens. Dallas for example is apparently a police department that "does it right"; completely different than, say, Milwaukee under David Clarke, perhaps the next most up-and-coming abusive sheriff to rival Joe Arpaio.

It just so happens that a disproportionate amount of police departments probably have these incredibly horrible policies and training regimens, and with the inertia you know of they may not be very willing to change those.

[Kamakazie Sith]

One thing that should be noted is different police departments have different policies and training regimens. Dallas for example is apparently a police department that "does it right"; completely different than, say, Milwaukee under David Clarke, perhaps the next most up-and-coming abusive sheriff to rival Joe Arpaio.

It just so happens that a disproportionate amount of police departments probably have these incredibly horrible policies and training regimens, and with the inertia you know of they may not be very willing to change those.

Exactly. I don't think anyone has done a comprehensive list of those departments but it wouldn't surprise me if they outnumber departments that have "does it right" policies by a significant margin. Though I would be interested to see that broken down into population because giving the same weight to a police department that has a staff of 20 sworn police officers to say Dallas with a staff of nearly 3500 officers isn't logical. Still even under that break down I wouldn't be surprised to see departments with out of date policies outnumbering those with modern policies.

For example, I have a handy law enforcement app on my phone and it only has THREE policies categorized as "model policies". Though Dallas isn't one of them but still. LOL fucking three! Out of nearly 18,000.

[Zaune]

Exactly. I don't think anyone has done a comprehensive list of those departments but it wouldn't surprise me if they outnumber departments that have "does it right" policies by a significant margin. Though I would be interested to see that broken down into population because giving the same weight to a police department that has a staff of 20 sworn police officers to say Dallas with a staff of nearly 3500 officers isn't logical. Still even under that break down I wouldn't be surprised to see departments with out of date policies outnumbering those with modern policies.

For example, I have a handy law enforcement app on my phone and it only has THREE policies categorized as "model policies". Though Dallas isn't one of them but still. LOL fucking three! Out of nearly 18,000.

And for extra fun, combine that with this plot twist in the conspiracy thriller/soap opera hybrid that is the Presidential election: Minorities are arming themselves in increasing numbers. Not to mention the fact that political pressure from Washington to address the issue of non-whites and officer-involved shootings is going to dry up completely in the near future.

[Flagg]

KS, I don't buy that tampering with a homicide scene since they aren't forthcoming with which homicide and what exactly the tampering was. It could have easily been him trying to save the life of the guy he didn't shoot by administering CPR. And if this had happened before the topic of this thread, why was he still on the street and not riding a desk or unemployed? It doesn't add up to me.

[Kamakazie Sith]

KS, I don't buy that tampering with a homicide scene since they aren't forthcoming with which homicide and what exactly the tampering was. It could have easily been him trying to save the life of the guy he didn't shoot by administering CPR. And if this had happened before the topic of this thread, why was he still on the street and not riding a desk or unemployed? It doesn't add up to me.

That's fine. Though I did explain why he would still be on the streets.

"What people here don't have experience with in the process it takes to get cops fired in locations with unions, etc. The department often has to create a case for termination showing multiple violations of policy and law. If the contamination of the homicide scene and illegal vehicle searches took place before this incident, which I imagine they did, then it is likely he was on a list for pending termination and this was just the final excuse they needed and they took it which is also often the case with departments that have strong unions or sympathies civilian government.
"

[Zaune]

That's fine. Though I did explain why he would still be on the streets.

"What people here don't have experience with in the process it takes to get cops fired in locations with unions, etc. The department often has to create a case for termination showing multiple violations of policy and law. If the contamination of the homicide scene and illegal vehicle searches took place before this incident, which I imagine they did, then it is likely he was on a list for pending termination and this was just the final excuse they needed and they took it which is also often the case with departments that have strong unions or sympathies civilian government.
"

There's still ways of dealing with someone who's too much of a fuck-up to be trusted with anything important but not enough of a verifiable fuck-up to sack yet. Graveyard shift in a neighbourhood that's too middle-class for anything except the occasional domestic dispute after 6:30 in the evening, issuing parking tickets, giving road-safety talks to elementary school kids... I don't know. What does whoever's pissed your boss off get assigned to?