You can't tell if it did? How were the cops supposed to know?
At the time of the Erik Scott incident, the Metro police get the benefit of the doubt - they get to assume the gun is loaded.
After the fact, however, once it becomes apparent that Erik Scott was a legal CCW holder, a former military officer who was quite familiar with firearms, who had a whole 2-6 seconds to "pull his gun and fire at a police officer", then it becomes a question that any reasonable armed citizen wants an answer to.
I know that right now, my 9mm has a clip in it, but there's no round in the chamber. I know when I'm carrying, I check my piece multiple times for an empty chamber, just to be safe.
On the other hand, while watching the defenders of Metro on the Interwebs, you see them going overboard with wild assumptions stemming from the unproven assertion that "the gun was LOADED!!!". After Officer Mosher claimed at the inquest that he had a holster like Erik's, and that he could fire his gun through, skeptics on another forum were subjected to a Metro defender ramming around for multiple days betting everyone a hundred dollars that he could have fired at the police through Erik's holster.
Not if the gun was unloaded.
On this thread, we have Moonpie claiming that Erik may have used an innocent bystander as a shield.
Not if the gun was unloaded.
I'm willing to grant them it at the time of the incident, but they don't get to smear the dead after the fact with it, capice?.