Police Chief Donny Williams speaks about officer-involved shootings in Wilmington

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — In the aftermath of Friday’s shooting where a homeless man shot at officers, he made his second appearance in court Tuesday.

WWAY spoke with Police Chief Donny Williams about officer-involved shootings in Wilmington.

Since Williams took over as Police Chief in 2020, the department has handled about 500,000 calls in that time.

Of those, there have been 21 instances where officers were in a position to use deadly force.

Chief Williams said of those 21, only 5 resulted in officers firing at a suspect, with one resulting in the suspect’s death.

That happened last August when officers shot and killed a man who had been on a two-day crime spree that included kidnapping a woman and shooting another.

Chief Williams said a lot goes into the decision to use deadly force.

“Being a police officer and having been one as long as I have, when you get up each morning, you just want to come to work and serve the community,” Willaims said. “You don’t want to come to work and have to use deadly force. One of my expectations or demands for our officers is when they leave and go to work to serve, they return home to their families.”

Williams also spoke about when the State Bureau of Investigation steps in following a police-involved shooting.

“If an officer or a suspect is injured, then we will normally call in the SBI to conduct an investigation. And what the SBI is looking for is to make sure that the use of force was appropriate and it was reasonable.”

Williams talked about Friday’s officer-involved shooting and said his officers handled the situation professionally, even if some people have wondered why the shooter wasn’t injured.

“I’m sitting here with all these rounds in my sidearm and if I had to pull my sidearm, I’m responsible for where each and every one of those rounds goes at, once it leaves that gun and again, those are things that our people have to consider,” Williams said.

The man arrested following Friday’s shooting, Edwin Leroy Vaughan faces more than 20 charges stemming from the shooting, including attempted first-degree murder.

He is being held on a more than $1 million bond.