(Reuters) – A police officer who shot and killed a 93-year-old woman as she brandished a firearm in a small Texas town was fired on Saturday, a police official said.
Officer Stephen Stem fatally shot Pearlie Golden in Hearne, Texas, on Tuesday after responding to an emergency call about a woman with a gun, the Robertson County District Attorney’s Office said earlier this week.
According to the district attorney’s statement, Stem asked Golden to put down the weapon and then fired upon her. The Texas Rangers were sent to investigate the incident in Hearne, a town of about 4,500 residents located some 90 miles northeast of Austin.
The same officer was placed on leave about a year ago for shooting dead a suspect when responding to a call of an unruly crowd gathering in an apartment complex parking lot, The Eagle newspaper of Bryan-College Station reported earlier this week.
The Hearne City Council met on Saturday and voted unanimously to fire Stem, according to a report by KBTX-TV in the Bryan-College Station metropolitan area of Texas. City officials could not be reached for comment but the Hearne police official confirmed Stem was let go, without giving further details.
Stem’s attorney, Robert McCabe, could not be reached for comment on Saturday.
McCabe in a statement told KBTX on Friday that he was “fully confident that Officer Stem’s actions were immediately necessary and legally justified.”
(Reporting by Kevin Murphy in Kansas City, Mo., and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Diane Craft)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/11/stephen-stem-shoots-93-year-old_n_5304790.html
What ever “excuse” this creature may be using
is far from acceptable ….and never will be.
This blood thirsty killer is what we’re all facing,
and worse, in the fight for the
RESTORATION of OUR REPUBLIC.
Cops always say they “feared for their life”, that’s their ticket out of anything.
They fire him, now where is his murder charge…..
@Trixie I’m sure that was the deal by their D.A. charges or dismissal ,he took the latter.
The city council only fired him becasue of the publicity. Otherwise, nothing would have happened except the old slap on the wrist.
No doubt he’ll soon be rehired by a somewhat more brutally inclined police department, with less concern for public opinion.
Far be it from them to allow proven killers to go unrewarded.
Check out this story (can’t post it, due to the copyright):
http://www.theeagle.com/news/texas/fired-once-some-texas-police-resurface-elsewhere/article_6ea026d2-387b-5e67-91c4-7141999a1368.html
And get this…There is a Fundraiser for him (barf)!
http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/Fundraiser-For-Fired-Hearne-Officer-Reaches-Its-Goal-259687841.html
“You can no longer trust it to tell you what it’s supposed to,” said Kim Vickers, executive director of the Texas Law Enforcement Commission, the state agency that monitors officers. “The system is broken.”
F’N BROKEN??? It’s doing EXACTLY what it was DESIGNED TO DO!
“It’s not that there are not problem officers out there,” Vickers said.”
Understatement of the year.
You beat me to it, Joe. 🙂 😉
Earlier, I sent these two in, from the local news. I was wondering why they (or one of them) hadn’t been posted. LOL
Notice the different POVs. (KBTX is our hometown TV station, The Eagle is our Newspaper)
http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/Attorney-Officer-Stem-Deeply-Di-258913191.html
http://www.theeagle.com/news/local/hearne-officer-fired-after-shooting-killing–year-old/article_f15aa50f-d2b0-5631-a902-befba4cb3a84.html