Posted on 09/17/2010 8:33:36 AM PDT by Kaslin
An accomplished young man is killed by police outside a Vegas Costco, and bystander accounts starkly contrast with official reports.
Erik Scott was a West Point graduate, Army veteran, MBA graduate of Duke University, and a medical sales rep for Boston Scientific. He was gunned down by three Las Vegas police officers after they responded to a 911 call by Costco store employees reporting a man with a gun, possibly on narcotics, behaving erratically.
Scott was 38 years old, shopping with his girlfriend for items they needed as they moved in together. Unfortunately, those are the only details of the story on which anyone agrees.
To hear the side of the story presented by Scott’s family, friends, and some eyewitnesses, Erik Scott’s death was the result of ignorance and embellishment on the part of the Costco staff, and a combative, deterministic mindset from responding officers.
Other witnesses and the police claim that Eric Scott was armed and acting irrationally, and that his own actions led to his shooting.
What we know for certain is that Scott was in the camping section of the store taking bottles out of their packaging, attempting to determine how many of the bottles would fit in a cooler he was thinking of purchasing. At some point he bent over and his shirt rode up, exposing the pistol he had concealed at the small of his back.
A Costco employee saw the holstered sidearm and told Scott he was not allowed to have the weapon in the store. Scott replied that he had a permit and the right to carry his weapon. He then went back to shopping. The employee called over a manager, who informed a 20-something security guard, who made a 911 call to police.
We do not know precisely what was said in that important call, because the police have refused to release it. We do, however, know from police radio traffic picked up by a scanner that the guard had told police that Erik Scott was armed with a gun, was acting aggressively and erratically, and that he may have been under the influence of drugs.
It must have been a frightening tale: over a dozen police officers responded, along with a helicopter, ambulance, and competing incident command teams.
As the police began to form a massive perimeter outside, Costco managers began evacuating the entire store without apparently explaining why to anyone. As Scott and his girlfriend exited the store he was identified to police officers, who were waiting with guns drawn outside the front door.
A blog from Erik’s family described what happened next:
Erik turned to find three officers facing him, guns drawn, and all three shouting different commands: “Get on the ground!” “Drop your weapon!” “Keep your hands up!” Erik held his hands up, spoke calmly, told them he DID have a concealed firearm and a legal CCW and was an ex-Army officer. His girlfriend was screaming about Erik being a West Point grad, former Army officer, etc. Erik leaned to his left, hands still up, to expose the pistol, and repeated, “I am disarming; I am disarming.” Witnesses say he started to lower his right hand, palm OUT, perhaps intending to remove holster and gun together — but never got the hand below his shoulder, when one of the cops (believed to be William Mosher, who had committed a fatal shooting in 2006) shot Erik in the chest with a .45-caliber semi-automatic weapon. Erik dropped to his knees, clearly in shock, his face a picture of disbelief. He was shot a second time and collapsed. The rest is ugly. The three officers unloaded again, firing a total of seven hollow-point rounds. At least four, possibly five, hit Erik in the back, after he was on the ground and dying.
Two experts hired by Scott’s family examined his body. They claim that of the seven .45 ACP hollowpoint bullets fired into Scott’s body, one was fired through his armpit, suggesting his arm was raised at the time. Four remaining shots were fired into his back. There were no exit wounds, making it all but impossible for police to claim that investigators misread through-and-through wounds.
Metro Police Captain Patrick Neville claimed a different series of events, based in part on the 911 call that police have not released:
I could clearly hear the officers giving commands to the individual to get him on the ground, hear people yelling and screaming in the background. You could hear the shots being fired. When you listen to that, it definitely sends a chill down your spine.
There are no commands or communications between Erik Scott and police captured on a nine-minute audiotape during which the shooting occurred. Officers not directly in front of the store are heard over the radio establishing a perimeter and trying to block off access to the store’s parking lot. The first indication Scott and the police have made contact is when a officer breaks in to call “shots fired” after Scott is on the ground, already dying or dead.
In another interview, Captain Neville claimed Scott did not listen to police commands:
He does not comply with that order. He reaches for the weapon, pulls the weapon out … uh, at which time the weapon was out of the waistband, the officers — three officers — discharged their weapons.
Others on the scene did not see it that way. Robert Garcia directly conflicts the reports of police:
I was close enough to see this guy’s face, and to see his hands, and to see his body go down.
Walking just ten feet in front of Erik Scott, Garcia exited the Costco to see officers with guns drawn. He heard an officer yell: “Put it down! Get down!”
Then he claims four shots were fired, and he instantly turned towards the victim:
After hearing the shots I see the guy going down. I looked at — I saw his hands. His hands had no gun in it. I looked on the ground because — just, I just did that. I looked down and I didn’t see a gun. I saw what I thought were maybe sunglasses. And a pen.
This matches up with several other eyewitness claims that officers William Mosher, Joshua Stark, and Thomas Mendiola fired nearly immediately after shouting conflicting commands at Scott, giving him little or no time to respond. Four other witnesses within 20 feet of the store’s entrance all agree that Scott never brandished a weapon or made a move that could be interpreted as brandishing a weapon.
A coroner’s inquest is to be held next week, but the outcome seems foreordained. In the past 34 years, only one Metro officer has ever been found to have acted improperly out of at least 190 inquests, and that officer wasn’t charged with a crime.
For the record, the Costco did not have signs posted prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons. Scott did not violate any laws in carrying his weapon in the store. It is quite possible that Erik Scott was gunned down without having committed so much as a misdemeanor crime, and that the officers who shot him will be merely the latest exonerated in a long line from an apparently unaccountable police force.
When was the last time you had a “business” interaction with a cop?
I have personally seen to it that one CHP officer went to jail and two others were reassigned to Death Valley. I hate bad cops and it has been years since I met good one.
The radio traffic has been released, and it's in the dispatcher statements.
So it's been stated. Does that mean you don't pay heed to the store employee who tells you guns aren't allowed? /just ask'n
Really, all the sign does is stop on before they enter.
So, he was tired, he was shopping and he didn't feel like dealing with the d!ckhead that was hassling him, he just wanted to buy his stuff and go home.
Show me where in the laws that is punished by a public summary death sentence.
>>Let’s say there’s a big old sign that says, among other things that there are no firearms allowed in the park. Does that make the arrest legitimate?
>
>Hmmm. Well, if the state law says it’s ok to carry in parks I think that would render the, assuming it’s a towns law, void.
Well, the State Constitution is supposedly the highest non-US Constitution law of the land (state).
>>Does this information change the answer you would have given above?
>
>Certainly gives one pause to be sure. For me, I have CCW’s for years and would never open carry. That’s just me, but you raise a great point. I guess it all comes down to how far we’d like to take it, ya know?
Indeed. I’m tempted to push the issue.
I could raise Seven Shit Storms, legally speaking...
Imagine:
I could call myself in to the police for carrying openly in the city-park and demanding that the officer arrests me.
(Hopefully they would use more than just one police officer to make the arrest... but that comes into play later.)
In court:
1 — Challenge the validity of the *law* under which I was arrested according to Art II, Sec 4.
2 — Challenge the validity of the *law* under which I was arrested according to Art II, Sec 6.
3 — Challenge the validity of the *arrest* itself, based on #1.
4 — Challenge the validity of the *arrest* itself, based on #2.
5 — Challenge the validity of the *law* under Art II, Sec 1.
6 — Charge the arresting officers on the basis of this law: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000241——000-.html
7 — Charge the [entire] state legislature on the basis of the above.
Ah, I can almost smell the Chaos.
[NM State Constitution, Art II: http://www.conwaygreene.com/nmsu/lpext.dll?f=FifLink&t=document-frame.htm&l=query&iid=6c1804dd.55b72e94.0.0&q=%5BGroup%20%27nmc%20artii%27%5D ]
same article states one of the *orders* was "drop it" or "put it down"...which myself and several other posters have already ribbed you about...very possibly in a split second he thought 'disarming' would diffuse their adrenaline ???
most witness accounts indicate that he prolly didnt even realize that he was a target, he was simply evacuating as instructed along with the herd, then was suddenly singled out and given conflicting commands, merely seconds before the opened up...not much chance to logically think thru the proper response to their conflict, unless you rehearse the scenario regularly...
any *reach* was/would be a mistake for sure...but the one certainty is that if the cops hadnt showed up in a frenzy, because somebody saw a *GASP* gun, he wouldntve been shot...
>.it seems from the article that he voluntarily said “I’m disarming”, and started to move his arm down...that’s not what the cops wanted him to do...they wanted him to follow THEIR instructions not his own...he wasn’t complying
So “Drop the weapon!!” /= an instruction to disarm?
How do you get that?
Except one of the commands that witness heard was "Drop it!"
You know what I do if cops points a gun at me shouting three different commands? I put my hands up, palms toward him and don't move a muscle until they calms down. They'll arrest me for "not obeying police" or even "restisting arrest" but if they blow me away and the cruiser camara catches it, at least they'll be doing some hard time.
wear yer kevlar...8^}
>>So it’s been stated. Does that mean you don’t pay heed to the store employee who tells you guns aren’t allowed?
>
>So, he was tired, he was shopping and he didn’t feel like dealing with the d!ckhead that was hassling him, he just wanted to buy his stuff and go home.
>Show me where in the laws that is punished by a public summary death sentence.
Exodus 20:3 — 3 “You shall have no other gods before me.”
Who said ANYTHING about law & death? Quit throwing everything & the kitchen sink in the mix.
So, he was tired, he was shopping and he didn't feel like dealing with the d!ckhead that was hassling him
That's a BS excuse & you know it. When you choose to take on the responsibility of CCW, you have to conduct yourself a little differently than if you weren't.....
For example, here in CT., if you're carrying and some ass wants to start a fight with you, you have to walk away, and (in my case) a 6'-4" pussy. Because if I take the bait & fight while carrying & the cops come, even though my gun NEVER came out, was never even seen, I now get arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. FACT.
Or, should I just conduct myself as if I wasn't carrying?
Look, we're on the same side here. This story begs a ton of questions and the only one I asked was "why didn't he leave when told of the story policy by the employee"?
>wear yer kevlar...8^}
Well, I didn’t make the laws.... but I don’t see why I should subject myself to being beaten into submitting with those very laws without using them against the very people assailing me with those laws.
One of Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” was to force those who claimed some moral standing to live up to their own moral-code and then condemn them when they failed. But it works both ways, I can take the moral-code they have decided to impose upon me [i.e. the law] and demand that *they* live up to it.
Of course there’s the slight problem of “the laws don’t apply to me”-attitude that many in our government have, but this could work in the favor of any legal-action against the government [assuming a jury is involved] because the alienation of the government from their people sows distrust of the government among those very people. {A long-winded way to say that this is merely a specific instance of “you reap what you sow.”}
>That’s a BS excuse & you know it. When you choose to take on the responsibility of CCW, you have to conduct yourself a little differently than if you weren’t.....
Which is why everyone should openly carry. ;)
To each his own. I prefer to keep it concealed.
>>Which is why everyone should openly carry. ;)
>
>To each his own. I prefer to keep it concealed.
*nod* - At least you didn’t use that ridiculous “tactical advantage” line that some of the pro-CCW/anti-OC types use, so thanks.
LOL
No, not me. My thinking.......the more people we get to carry, the better.
Have a great weekend,
Pete
You have a good weekend too.
youve mentioned in passing that you were thinkin of a situation to strangle the system under its own conflicting statutes...this happened to be the first specifics ive seen...
set up a legal defense fund, contact any pro 2A groups and inform em, hell mr Gura might like to help too, inform the 'press' such as it is [they love 'gotcha' stuff too] so that the initial face-to-face is more controlled, so to speak, and finally, wear the kevlar...
dont forget to have a good breakfast, most jail food sucks and is only dished out on schedule...
bury em under their own weight is the next best option before going to the final box...
I heard a rumor when asked about the tapes a cop said to put them uppa US./s
There seems to be a small number of FReepers who have a rabid hatred of police. Perhaps they’ve had some unfortunate personal experiences. I know that can color how you see things. However, while I know people who have been treated horribly by the police and the system and I know our justice system is imperfect, I also know that in an emergency I will rely on cops, who daily put their lives on the line, even for the same people who call them jack booted thugs.
Having said that, I don’t know what happened in this case. I hope the truth comes out and I feel very badly for the family of the deceased. This sounds like a true tragedy.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.