Posted on 07/24/2010 5:01:55 AM PDT by show me state
LAS VEGAS -- Friends and family of Erik Scott, the man shot to death at a Costco store by Las Vegas police, are taking their message to roadside billboards.
(Excerpt) Read more at 8newsnow.com ...
If that’s the case, then the store manager should have made him pay for the merchandise, and not pay with his life.
I hope so but wouldn't bet on it.
An article said a store employee helped him put the stuff in his cart while another employee was around the corner on a bluetooth telling police a man with a gun was destroying merchandise.
Or, a ditzy clerk panicked over a misbehaving customer when she spotted his quite legally toted weapon. What is the saying, don’t ascribe to malice what you can ascribe to stupidity? So instead of store security going over to have a word with the fellow (like “you damaged that, you are going to have to buy it”) there ensued a frantic Kabuki dance ending with confusion and a shooting.
Well well, the concept of keystone kop can extend to store clerks too? Who knew?
That’s the kind of thing that God worries about and we shouldn’t.
It's said that he was damaging merchandise...meaning he was taking individual items from their packaging.If true (and that could be easily confirmed,IMO) that could be grounds for calling store security...perhaps even the police.If a "wrong" has been committed here (distinctly possible,IMO) then it seems it was the cops who are responsible,not Costco.
Just as many Freepers predicted, there were “technical difficulties” with the video. I’ve got a pretty good guess who was in the right in this case.
Yes. The early articles make you want to scream. In one of the articles, in the "comments" section, a resident said they were angry that the guy had a legal weapon in the store so they padded the story to police to expedite their arrival.
Scott filed out of the store with everyone else because it was evacuated. Police then proceeded to shoot into the crowd, hitting Scott 5 times. When he was on the ground, dying, they shot him two more times. There were people standing just a few feet away from him.
I disagree. You can't tell someone they need to repent if you let God worry about. It's our job to lovingly tell someone they were wrong. Only God can wield the 2x4. :-)
Maybe it’s a comment on the silly excitability and/or litigiousness of this society that the matter didn’t end with store security’s personal involvement, but that the cops were called at all. (Seems that based on the report of the other employee helping him load up the broken case, he wouldn’t have given store security any trouble.)
In a tangential vein there was a discussion here some months ago about a situation where a child was lost in a crowd and moments later a presumed perv was caught trying to take the child to a bathroom. Modern dangers occupy our attention today. At the very least, if an unattended small child comes to the attention of a store employee, police will be called. It used to be that there would soon be an announcement on the P.A. system “would the mother of little Johnny please come to the service desk? he is waiting here for you.” And she’d come and get little Johnny, and that would be that.
I mean as gawking cacklers as we all are here. If we have a chance to witness, that’s another story.
I was one of them. My next prediction is that the lab in California will announce that regrettably, the video imagery has been irretrievably lost. It's all very technical, and you little people on the jury and in the public at large wouldn't understand it.
If the video cleared the cops, it would have been on TMZ, youtube, and all the major networks by now.
I'm interested in the Costco 911 call on tape to the police as much as the CCTV tape outside.
And here is a letter I received from one of our students who lives in the area and actually shops at the Costco where the incident occurred...
Dr Piazza,
My name is Dr. Greg Goetz. I'm a Front Sight Lifetime Member and pistol/rifle graduate.
There was an incident a week ago at a Costco about 2 miles from my house, one that I shop at regularly.
A 39 year old Boston Scientific medical instruments rep who was a West Point graduate was shot and killed by Las Vegas Metro police as he exited Costco after shopping there with his girlfriend. I don't think I've ever met the guy but I know one of his co-workers very well. (I'm an anesthesiologist)
According to the Las Vegas review journal, he was inside shopping with his girlfriend and at one point became agitated or frustrated trying to see if a case of bottled water or Gatorade would fit into his backpack. He was noticed by either fellow shoppers or Costco staff or both. The decision was made by someone to call the police.
He eventually calmed down, finished his shopping, paid, and was exiting the building when he as approached by 3 policemen. The best that can be gathered from hearsay and secondhand reports was that he was trying to tell them he was carrying concealed and lifted his shirt to show the police. At that point he was shot.
As the facts become more clear and public (and they surely will because there were a multitude of witnesses not the least of which was the girlfriend) the police's choice of lethal force over less lethal (stun gun, etc) will either be validated or rejected.
But I think our local community here in Las Vegas, the news media, and the rest of the firearms community nationwide are missing a very important point. The police don't get called for some guy just acting agitated at a Costco.
I will bet my life he somehow exposed his sidearm and someone got scared and notified the police on a "man with a gun" call.
I think this has more to do with the fear of the largely gun-intimidated public, many of whom sit at the left end of the political spectrum. Some soccer mom shopping with her kids probably saw his gun. freaked and called the cops. Such a call results in a mindset by the responding officers that probably has more to do with this man being dead than whether or not he failed to follow the cop's instructions verbatim when he was approached.
I carry every day. Everywhere I'm allowed, unless there is a no firearms sign. Then it stays in the car till I come back out and it goes back on my hip where it's happy. Front Sight has given me the comfort of mind of being safe and effective with my guns, but the rest of the public is still predominately very intimidated by guns. I think those of us in the "gun community" have to recognize this and take the appropriate steps while carrying to maintain good concealment and monitor our behavior so that we are 'model' citizens while doing so, so the same thing doesn't repeat itself.
Again, my take is that this was not so much a police over reaction as a CITIZEN'S over reaction to seeing a gun, because THAT is really, that's what started the events in motion.
This fall I'm scheduled for Precision Rifle, Edged Weapons, Advanced Tactical Handgun and I'm bringing out my 3rd and 4th first time students so they can experience Front Sight too.
Keep up the good work. You're fighting the good fight.
Dr. Gregory Goetz
Anesthesiologist
Las Vegas, NV.
Ok. Got it. :-)
Or if the lab has integrity, it will report “gee, it looks like a big magnet was used on this drive, but we still got a smattering of stuff and here it is.”
The lab is being paid by the police department. They won’t.
I believe that was the initial source of the dispute, and one can only assume that the victim refused to pay. I understand the store employee also told him he couldn't conceal carry in the store and that escalated the issue.
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