[morganvachon]

> This cop tried to treat the victim like an actual human being in distress and got fired for it.

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.

[heisenbit]

It is usually a bad idea to take an incident that does not justify firing by itself (or belongs to a similar class of incidents) as a trigger.

The other alleged professional shortcomings were of a very different nature and that won't work well in court.

[morganvachon]

If all the events happened within an annual evaluation period, it's perfectly normal for him to be fired after a certain number of write-ups. That's standard practice at any public safety job, and indeed most government jobs. I'm guessing this was the third offense in the evaluation period.

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.