Cops Kill Permit Holder in Las Vegas

[xbaltzx]

I looked over this thread and noticed THIS article has not been posted. In the article there is video (located in the upper right hand corner of the page) of the father of Erik Scott talking at length on how he feels about the incident.

[Buzzard]

I looked over this thread and noticed THIS article has not been posted. In the article there is video (located in the upper right hand corner of the page) of the father of Erik Scott talking at length on how he feels about the incident.

 

Thanks for the post and the tip, xbaltzx. As with every article concerning this incident, there is a VERY heated exchange of comments! Regarding the father, I have yet to watch the video as I have dial-up service and it could take until morning to download. I think it's safe to say, the father is going to get to the truth - one way or another.

[templar223]

I wanna see the video.

 

This guy was about as "upstanding" as they come.

 

If those cops were trigger happy... perhaps sympathetic discharges, etc., they will fry.

 

John

 

Please excuse the amateur questioning the Master, but can you explain what is meant by "sympathetic discharges"? I've never heard this term before and a Google search only finds the Sympathetic Discharge of Rimfire Firearms which is the firing of an adjacent cylinder in a .22 revolver. I'm sure that's not what you meant.

 

Lemme' take a stab and see if I'm right according to Templar. A high tension situation, everyone on edge. One shot goes off, and everyone fires "in sympathy" to the first. Close Templar??

 

 

Close enough.

 

Basically, once someone hears the first shot break, they assume there's a reason for it and begin blasting themselves without having seen the (required) threat of death or great bodily injury to an innocent.

 

John

[Buzzard]

I wanna see the video.

 

This guy was about as "upstanding" as they come.

 

If those cops were trigger happy... perhaps sympathetic discharges, etc., they will fry.

 

John

 

Please excuse the amateur questioning the Master, but can you explain what is meant by "sympathetic discharges"? I've never heard this term before and a Google search only finds the Sympathetic Discharge of Rimfire Firearms which is the firing of an adjacent cylinder in a .22 revolver. I'm sure that's not what you meant.

 

Lemme' take a stab and see if I'm right according to Templar. A high tension situation, everyone on edge. One shot goes off, and everyone fires "in sympathy" to the first. Close Templar??

 

 

Close enough.

 

Basically, once someone hears the first shot break, they assume there's a reason for it and begin blasting themselves without having seen the (required) threat of death or great bodily injury to an innocent.

 

John

 

Thanks, John! As far as seeing the video...

 

 

Police Have Not Viewed Costco Surveillance Tapes

 

Posted: Jul 15, 2010 7:34 PM CDT

Updated: Jul 15, 2010 7:59 PM CDT

8newsnow.com

 

LAS VEGAS -- Detectives investigating an officer involved shooting at a Summerlin Costco have still not viewed surveillance video of the incident.

 

Officers opened fire on Erik Scott on Saturday after Costco employees said he was destroying store merchandise and had a gun. Police say Scott pointed his gun at officers before they fired their weapons, but witness statements contradict information released by investigators. Scott was a West Point graduate with a valid concealed weapons permit.

 

Detectives hope to view surveillance video of the incident, but have sent it for forensic examination because of a technical issue with Costco's recording equipment. It's still unclear if the incident was even captured on video or if the equipment was working properly the day of the shooting.

 

According to Scott's father, Erik was in the store shopping for water bottles. "He was in Costco looking for metal water bottles and tried them out to see if they would fit in the cooler he had. There was a Costco employee there with him at the time. From there forward we have a pretty good picture what happened," said William Scott.

 

Police have also refused to release the 911 tapes made during the incident. A coroner's inquest into the shooting has not been scheduled, but it is expected to happen sometime in September.

[Bill Matio]

From the article

 

Police have also refused to release the 911 tapes made during the incident.

 

Wonder why that is?

[lockman]

HoustonVegas, We have a problem!

[templar223]

I saw a story today that said the cops still hadn't "reviewed" the video from Costco as of a day or two ago.

 

Something's smelling fishy here.

 

It's gonna smell like week-old dead fish if there's no video "available".

 

John

[Buzzard]

A recent news article - that is "a related story" to the Erik Scott shooting - goes into detail about how police train to handle armed suspects. But it only considers armed aggressors. This was an incident involving a concealed carry permit holder who was picking up a prescription and shopping for personal items. (metal water bottles) Not even close to what transpired at Costco that day.

 

On line news stories of the tragedy have given voice to some anti-gun posted comments regarding concealed carry. There are some posters that question the wisdom of carrying a gun into a store. Obviously, they're oblivious to possibility of shopping mall shooters. Others are wondering if Erik Scott's death was "suicide by cops". Why would you bother picking up a prescription if you're planning your suicide? These are the ramblings of the purest sheeple mentality.

[BadWaterBill]

Just because they have cameras available and may be watching will they be recording everything each camera sees?

[lockman]

Just because they have cameras available and may be watching will they be recording everything each camera sees?

 

Or, just because they were recorded does not always mean that the footage still exists! The PD is possibly withholding issuing a subpoena so Costco can erase them on schedule without any repercussions.

[Pecker]

The more I read on this, the more it doesn't add up. Occam's razor comes to mind. What is more likely? That this highly successful West Point grad, Duke grad, former army officer, medical device salesman completely had a nervous breakdown in an instant and pulled his gun on the police, or that Costco overhyped the situation in a 911 call, the police arrived amped up on adrenaline looking for a fight, and poorly trained police over react after giving the victim conflicting instructions (one says get down, the other says drop the gun...by the way, witnesses are saying the gun never left his waistband and was found in a zippered holster.)

 

My money is on the cops over reacting. However, we won't know until the video is released. However, reading another article, I don't think this family is just going to let it go. The guy's father is a former Air Force officer living in Colorado Springs (from that info I'd guess AF Academy grad, but unsure). He's certainly likely to have connections in either the USAFA or West Point graduate community with higher ups in the FBI etc. Don't look for this one to die out soon.

[pyre400]

I've been following this story too... Here's a pretty compelling interview as Erik's father talks about his son, and the incident. Its really a must watch if you're interested in this story:

 

Video

 

---watch the volume, by default, is on full boogie. The first 15 seconds is a commercial so put your speakers on mute, and then turn down the volume if you are in an office environment or have sleeping children in the house.

[Buzzard]

Don't look for this one to die out soon.

 

I believe you're right, Pecker. The Las Vegas sheriff has now taken calls on a local Vegas radio show, obviously trying to quell the firestorm of public anger over the shooting of Erik Scott. They've reviewed the 911 call - but have refused to release the audio. A Metro official says police shout at Scott: 'Get on the ground'. Yet witnesses disagree on what they heard police order Scott to do. Some heard, "Get on the ground," while others heard "Drop it," or "Get down." Metro says they've interviewed witnesses that saw Scott point a gun at the officers. But when other witnesses say they saw a zipped holster, Metro replies eyewitnesses are often unreliable.

 

In regards to the Father of Erik Scott, I believe he WILL NOT relent until he's satisfied. Bill Scott is a retired Air Force colonel and a former flight test engineer whose classmates in the service include four astronauts. He's also a nationally known aviation journalist with extensive contacts in military and intelligence circles. He says he will give Metro the benefit of the doubt while the investigation continues, but hints that he will bring other resources to bear if the family is unhappy with the results.

[papa]

I would like to know about the car videos. I would think , with that many cars responding , they would have video from at least one car showing this go down. If there are any vids from the cars i haven't heard of them.

[Glock21]

Couple of things...

 

To add to what John said, the "sympathy" fire is often refered to, I think more accurately, as contageous fire. It's not so much a reaction like your left hand flexing because your right does, but more out of "hey, there's shooting, and that means there is a threat, I'd better shoot to!"

 

Also, the actions of a suicidal person always very, but it's very common for those considering it to tie up all their lives loose ends before they do. Like picking up prescriptions. So that's not something I would base my conclusions on.

 

...and I'm not suggesting this person was suicidal.

[Buzzard]

Couple of things...

 

To add to what John said, the "sympathy" fire is often refered to, I think more accurately, as contageous fire. It's not so much a reaction like your left hand flexing because your right does, but more out of "hey, there's shooting, and that means there is a threat, I'd better shoot to!"

 

Also, the actions of a suicidal person always very, but it's very common for those considering it to tie up all their lives loose ends before they do. Like picking up prescriptions. So that's not something I would base my conclusions on.

 

...and I'm not suggesting this person was suicidal.

 

Thanks for the added info on the contageous fire. I'm guessing at this point, as is everyone else, but I'm thinking that's what happened.

 

I'm completely discounting the "suicide by cop" scenario. From what we know, Erik Scott was picking up prescriptions and was seen trial-fitting water bottles into his backpack. If he was planning his suicide in the next few minutes, why would he be wondering how many of a particular style water bottle would fit into his back pack?

 

It was also related by his girlfriend that Erik Scott was puzzled by the store evacuation and surprised by the police running to the store. She said that he asked, "What are the police here for?" in his last moments. If this was a suicide, he went to great lengths to make it not to appear as such. Everything in his life seemed to be going his way. Until his untimely death that is.

[markthesignguy]

This may be more productively dissected by going at it from the other direction...

 

I.e the initial call going in, what was the costco employee saying? was that employee prone to "hysterics" or overreaction (we ALL know 'em - control freak types that when not instantly obeyed lose it, tend to become low level managers...) , or was this a deliberate "I'll FIX his A##" type of call? Or an anti seeing their opportunity to give a ccw a hot foot - only to have it go even worse?

 

Then the subsequent over-reactions in the store, also escalating the situation...

 

Then what about the dispatcher? I'm sure his/her actions escalated the situation. Priming the pump so to speak, getting the responding officers so amped up that when on scene they only saw the parts of the situation that matched THEIR mental movie they had been primed to expect.

 

People evacuating the store, some panic there ?

 

How many people walk around ready to instantly drop and spread 'em when an officer in "full survival mode, expecting a gunfight" pops up in front of them?

 

 

What would happen to ME if I ignited such a situation, deliberately or not?

[Chiburbian]

This may be more productively dissected by going at it from the other direction...

 

I.e the initial call going in, what was the costco employee saying? was that employee prone to "hysterics" or overreaction (we ALL know 'em - control freak types that when not instantly obeyed lose it, tend to become low level managers...) , or was this a deliberate "I'll FIX his A##" type of call? Or an anti seeing their opportunity to give a ccw a hot foot - only to have it go even worse?

 

Then the subsequent over-reactions in the store, also escalating the situation...

 

Then what about the dispatcher? I'm sure his/her actions escalated the situation. Priming the pump so to speak, getting the responding officers so amped up that when on scene they only saw the parts of the situation that matched THEIR mental movie they had been primed to expect.

 

People evacuating the store, some panic there ?

 

How many people walk around ready to instantly drop and spread 'em when an officer in "full survival mode, expecting a gunfight" pops up in front of them?

 

 

What would happen to ME if I ignited such a situation, deliberately or not?

 

 

Which all sounds suspiciously like "yelling FIRE in a crowded theater."

[Buzzard]

This may be more productively dissected by going at it from the other direction...

 

I.e the initial call going in, what was the costco employee saying? was that employee prone to "hysterics" or overreaction (we ALL know 'em - control freak types that when not instantly obeyed lose it, tend to become low level managers...) , or was this a deliberate "I'll FIX his A##" type of call? Or an anti seeing their opportunity to give a ccw a hot foot - only to have it go even worse?

 

Then the subsequent over-reactions in the store, also escalating the situation...

 

Then what about the dispatcher? I'm sure his/her actions escalated the situation. Priming the pump so to speak, getting the responding officers so amped up that when on scene they only saw the parts of the situation that matched THEIR mental movie they had been primed to expect.

 

People evacuating the store, some panic there ?

 

How many people walk around ready to instantly drop and spread 'em when an officer in "full survival mode, expecting a gunfight" pops up in front of them?

 

What would happen to ME if I ignited such a situation, deliberately or not?

 

That's basically what I think caused the police to use deadly force. "Disturbance at Costco store. Gun involved. Evacuation in progress"

 

It's my guess that the police arrived at the scene in full combat mode due to an exaggerated version of events reported by the store employee to the 911 operator and the ordered evacuation of the store by employees. Not to point fault at the LV police, mind you. You go with what you know by what's being reported. It's a tragedy for all that are involved.

[Gary]

Well, it has been three weeks and the silence from Vegas has been deafening. I guess we will have to wait until the civil suit to discover how hard it is to keep cameras and other recording equipment in good repair.

[Beezil]

I would like to know about the car videos. I would think , with that many cars responding , they would have video from at least one car showing this go down. If there are any vids from the cars i haven't heard of them.

 

I believe the event was inside the store.

 

don't think car vids would have captured anything unless they pulled a "blues brothers"

[Federal Farmer]

I would like to know about the car videos. I would think , with that many cars responding , they would have video from at least one car showing this go down. If there are any vids from the cars i haven't heard of them.

 

I believe the event was inside the store.

 

don't think car vids would have captured anything unless they pulled a "blues brothers"

 

I think it happened out in the parking lot. The initial disturbance was in the store, however.

[pyre400]

I would like to know about the car videos. I would think , with that many cars responding , they would have video from at least one car showing this go down. If there are any vids from the cars i haven't heard of them.

 

I believe the event was inside the store.

 

don't think car vids would have captured anything unless they pulled a "blues brothers"

 

I think it happened out in the parking lot. The initial disturbance was in the store, however.

 

According to some of the info I've read, and seen on news video, there were cameras in the area that would have captured the incident.

 

The incident originally started in the store. Apparently, Erik was in the store, checking out some water bottles to see if they fit in his pack. There was a store associate with him at that time. The associate must have seen he had a gun, and they had some dialog on the topic. The police were called by the store, while an evacuation was underway. The cops arrived while the evacuation was in progress, and had confronted Erik as he was evacuating, in the parking lot, in front of the store.

 

ETA:

Here's a current article on the matter. The status has not changed, but it more, or less, confirms that there was video footage:

http://eon.businesswire.com/portal/site/eon/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20100803005756&newsLang=en

[Gary]

If the actual shooting took place in the store or outside the store, I have a lot of questions other than what actions may have taken place just seconds before the shooting. (Although, I would love to see the video of that, of course.) I would like to know what "erratic" actions by Erik prompted such a dramatic action such as a store evacuation. Calling the cops may have been reasonable if he refused to leave the store when asked. However, the actions that were taken and the report that was given on the 911 call seems to have been tantamont to calling in an air strike. I would like to see and hear as much of the interaction by the parties involved as possible. I suggest, though, that if the events do not support the words and actions by the store and/or the police that some of the equipment may have been inoperable or tapes may be mistakenly erased. Of course, I am just a natural born conspiracy theorist! lol

 

[junglebob]

If the actual shooting took place in the store or outside the store, I have a lot of questions other than what actions may have taken place just seconds before the shooting. (Although, I would love to see the video of that, of course.) I would like to know what "erratic" actions by Erik prompted such a dramatic action such as a store evacuation. Calling the cops may have been reasonable if he refused to leave the store when asked. However, the actions that were taken and the report that was given on the 911 call seems to have been tantamont to calling in an air strike. I would like to see and hear as much of the interaction by the parties involved as possible. I suggest, though, that if the events do not support the words and actions by the store and/or the police that some of the equipment may have been inoperable or tapes may be mistakenly erased. Of course, I am just a natural born conspiracy theorist! lol

 

This incident was posted on the carryconcealed.net forum. One member from Vegas, VegasGeorge posted this-

 

Nothing about video from squad cars. Police confiscated the video from cosco immediately after the shooting. They leaked that "something" is wrong with it, indicating a technical problem. There's a lot of scepticism about that in the local shooting community. People don't turst Metro to investigate itself impartially. Duh! Also Metro has a long inglorious history of shooting citizens, and only once has the Coroner's jury returned a "not justified" finding. Maybe thats the way it was in each case. But it makes one wonder.

[Bud]

A note on modern retail security videos. This is absolutely accurate concerning Walmart and Sam's Club. Both retailers make extensive use of video cameras. Every square inch of a store interior and every square inch of a parking lot is coverede. It is all digital, time and date stamped and it is maintained forever. They have a separate computer system capturing the data. An asset protection officer is able to follow a person from the moment they parked their car in the lot, into the store, up and down each aisle through the checkout where a separate camera is also recording the cashier's activities and the computer is linked to the store's system so the cashier's last name and employee number are on the video and then out to the parking lot and back into the car. The video can be enhanced by digital zoom at up 20x. If ever needed, a complete record of a person's visit to a store can be pulled up and the computer can link all the separate cameras into a video of the visit.

 

The surveillance system is good enough that a person using a gift card will have the gift card number linked to the video, used at the cashier and then that person can be followed out to the parking lot and most often, a license plate can be obtained. It is incredibly complex and also incredibly accurate.

 

Target, Kohl . Lowe's and Home Depot operate similar systems. I do not know if CostCo has a similar system but I am sure they do. Whether the incident happened inside or outside the store doesn't matter, it would have been caught from a number of angles by different cameras. The chance that something is wrong with the system is very hard to believe because of the amount of redunacy built into the systems.

 

My personal belief is that, based on the lenghty delay in going public with their findings, the cops have realized that one of their own screwed the pooch and either fired accidently or made a bad decision and then it became a case of monkey see, monkey do. All the cops at the scene would have wanted "bragging rights" in future war stories amd may have fired even though they didn't the suspect doing anything wrong.

 

At some point in the future, the Department will come out in public and admit that they made a mistake but right now all they can think about is CYA and hoping the law suit doesn't result in wholesale terminations.

 

But I would bet that is what will happened, some day.

[Blade13]

even if his gun was somewhat unconcealed for a moment in the store i thought open carry was legal in Nevada?

 

Nevadans are free to don their arms in the open

http://www.infowars.com/nevadans-are-free-to-don-their-arms-in-the-open/

[junglebob]

even if his gun was somewhat unconcealed for a moment in the store i thought open carry was legal in Nevada?

 

Nevadans are free to don their arms in the open

http://www.infowars.com/nevadans-are-free-to-don-their-arms-in-the-open/

Apparently even though there is preemption in Nevada, North LasVegas has a ordinance against open carry, I believe.

[pyre400]

http://www.ktnv.com/Global/story.asp?S=12920574

 

News coverage from this evening's news is available on the upper right hand side. They have a couple of audio bites from someone's scanner recording of the incident.

[lockman]

even if his gun was somewhat unconcealed for a moment in the store i thought open carry was legal in Nevada?

 

Nevadans are free to don their arms in the open

http://www.infowars.com/nevadans-are-free-to-don-their-arms-in-the-open/

Apparently even though there is preemption in Nevada, North LasVegas has a ordinance against open carry, I believe.

 

Unlawful regulations are unenforceable and subject the enforcer to color of law actions.