Kent County Sheriff Shoot At Unoccupied Vehicle - Since He Missed No Charges Were Filed

GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A Kent County sheriff’s deputy who fired two shots toward a crashed vehicle will not be charged because he thought the sound of a nearby pole snapping was someone firing at him and another deputy.
Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker issued the ruling Tuesday, May 3 involving the March 18 shooting along 36th Street SE near Patterson Avenue.

Details about the shooting were not known until Becker released them in the ruling.

He said deputies Paul Roemer and Pat Albert were sitting in a cruiser at the scene of a 2 a.m. traffic crash involving a driver that fell asleep. The driver’s vehicle struck a power pole. The driver was sitting on the side of the road, near the wrecked vehicle, awaiting a tow truck.

The deputies had been in the car about 20 minutes when Albert yelled “Go, go go!” because he saw the pole giving way and thought lines might come down on the cruiser. Albert ran from the cruiser.

But Roemer was not aware of the problems with the pole. He ran behind the cruiser and fired two shots toward the driver of the wrecked vehicle as the pole made a snapping noise that sounded like a gunshot.

The driver of the wrecked vehicle also was running because of the cracking pole.

No one was struck by any bullets.

Roemer, on dispatch traffic, can be heard saying “Shots fired! 4321 shots fired!”

He then confers with Albert who is walking back toward the cruiser.

“I thought I heard gunshots,” Roemer says.

“No, you heard the pole snapping,” Albert says.

Roemer can then be heard saying “s--t” and then telling a dispatcher it was not gunshots but the pole cracking.

Becker said Roemer believed the driver was firing at his partner and he later told investigators that he asked Albert “Pat, did he just shoot at us?”

Becker ruled that, because Roemer thought he and his partner were in danger, the shots were justified.

“Where circumstances present a person with reasonable cause to believe he is in danger, he may respond, even if his belief is later shown to have been mistaken,” Becker wrote.

Police said the bullets did not strike the wrecked vehicle or cause any known property damage.

Kent County sheriff’s administrators released a statement following Becker’s ruling.

They said they plan to complete an internal investigation to evaluate if there are any training or policy changes warranted from the incident.

Roemer was hired in January 2022 and was in field training on March 18. He had eight years of law enforcement experience prior to coming to Kent County, according to police.

“This is a difficult circumstance for any deputy and we are ensuring Deputy Roemer has support from the Employee Assistance Program and coworkers,” sheriff’s administrators wrote.

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