The lawsuit also claims that Kuzma, the officer who shot Williams, sent Mader disturbing text messages after a press conference on Sept. 14, 2016, in which police officials alleged that Mader had escalated the shooting incident.
According to the suit, Kuzma called Mader “a coward” who “didn’t have the balls to save[his] own life” before calling Mader and his mother “loud mouth pieces of shit” who would get an officer killed.
Mader said he found the messages hurtful and didn’t respond to them. “If this is a way for him to get it off his chest, I just let him do it,” he said.
The day after Kuzma texted Mader, Kuzma popped up at Mader’s school and harassed him:
[…] Kuzma showed up at the school where Mader was obtaining his CDL license in response to a call about a damaged truck. Mader says he tried to avoid interacting with Kuzma, who asked if he’d gotten the text messages.
According to Mader, Kuzma asked if the messages were accurate. Mader said he responded, “Not really.”
“It started out calm and it kind of escalated. I was trying to keep it calm,” Mader said.
A student and Mader’s instructor witnessed his interaction with Kuzma, Mader’s lawsuit says. The suit claims that the instructor reported it to the school’s owner, who called the police chief to file a report, but the chief denied the interaction had happened and didn’t write a report.
Kuzma was never disciplined for his actions, and is still with the Weirton Police Department. The department did not immediately reply to HuffPost’s request for comment about the lawsuit.
The city manager said in a statement that the city hasn’t received the text of the lawsuit or heard about any of Mader’s allegations. “It’s premature for us to publicly comment on a lawsuit that we haven’t yet received,” the statement said.
Huffington Post also reported The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) may be ending their practice of punishing officers who violate citizens’ rights. The DOJ decided to crack down on officers who abused their powers as a response to the outcry of the Black Lives Matter movement. Now that the movement has quieted down, so has the DOJ.
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