A Madison police officer who shot and killed an unarmed citizen while responding to an alleged burglary last November agreed to resign from the force Friday, exactly one week after Chief Noble Wray filed a complaint calling for his termination.
According to the memorandum, Stephen Heimsness will serve his last day on the police roster Nov. 23, 2013.
The agreement also nullifies Wray’s complaint, which outlined 118 instances in which Heimsness engaged in misconduct ranging from abuses of the department’s communications systems to violating firearms safety rules in the two months prior to the Nov. 9, 2012 shooting incident.
At approximately 2:45 a.m. Nov. 9, 30-year-old Paul Heenan, inebriated, entered his neighbors' house after mistaking it for his own, prompting the residents to call the police.
Heimsness drew his gun upon arriving at the scene when he saw Heenan involved in a physical altercation with the homeowner. According to multiple reports, Heimsness said Heenan reached for the exposed weapon, and the officer fatally wounded Heenan by firing his gun three times because he felt his life was in danger.
Madison Police Department investigators and Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne both looked into the matter and found Heimsness had acted reasonably and would therefore not face criminal charges.
However, The United States Department of Justice announced March 1 it would investigate the incident, and the federal case has not yet closed.
Madison Mayor Paul Soglin said the situation is “the most serious our police department has faced in four decades,” at a press conference June 25.
Soglin also said city human relations employees are in the process of developing an overhauling training program to “ensure that every one of Madison’s staff in every department understands that they cannot effectively and properly serve the public, work with other agencies and respect their co-workers unless every action, every word, is committed to gaining trust and dignity.”
Details of the comprehensive training program will be announced within the next few weeks, quickly followed by an implementation of the plan, according to Soglin.
Heimsness, Wray and Madison’s Professional Police Association signed the Memorandum of Understanding, an action defined in the document as a “full, final and complete settlement of the matter.”
