Posted on 07/26/2010 2:29:21 PM PDT by marktwain
LAS VEGAS -- Family and friends of the man gunned down by police officers two weeks ago outside a Costco in Summerlin are taking their message to the streets.
Erik Scott, 38, died after three police officers fired seven bullets into him. Police said Scott had a gun aimed at them, but some witnesses said they either didn’t see a gun in Scott’s hand or it was in its holster.
Scott, a West Point graduate, had a permit to carry a concealed firearm, family and friend said.
On Friday at midnight, seven billboards will start to display the first of several messages in the hopes of finding out the truth behind Scott’s shooting death.
“It's what friends do,” said Scott’s friend, Mike Pusateri. “They help find the truth. That's what we're doing.”
Pusateri and other friends of Scott have spent $3,000 on a series of digital messages targeting witnesses who were at the Summerlin Costco when Scott was shot.
“We're hoping they'll come off the fence and let their voices be heard on behalf of Erik,” Pusateri said.
Since Scott’s death, friends launched a website and a Facebook group dedicated to Scott’s memory.
More than 570 people have already joined the Facebook group, and some have made donations in support of the billboard campaign.
But Pusateri said the billboards aren’t accusing anyone.
“We're not going after anybody,” he said. “We're not going after Costco. We're not going after Metro. This is about getting the truth.”
The billboards are scheduled to run for four weeks, ending two weeks shy of the Sept. 3 coroner’s inquest to determine whether the shooting was justified.
Well, it’s hard to decipher from what I’m reading, what happened, but if the store was crowded it would seem that there would be good witnesses. I guess we can only wait and see.
No question this is a tragedy and I do accept that he was a good man by all accounts. While I have a great deal of respect for his service, I also hold police officers in high regard. I do hope the facts come out and as you said, we shall see. It seems odd all the way around. It strikes me as odd with so many witnesses that there’d be a far greater outcry if it was cold blooded. Perhaps a misunderstanding but even that is odd in that all 3 cops perceived the same situation. Add to that the fact that there is no motive. In any event a tragedy.
Do a keyword search of ‘banglist’ to nring yourself up to date.
“...died after three police officers fired seven bullets into him. Police said Scott had a gun aimed at them, but some witnesses said they either didn’t see a gun in Scott’s hand or it was in its holster.”
Cripes, if I didn’t know the shooting took place in Nevada dn someone asked me to bet on where this happened, I’d have said Florida.
“Then your part of the problem... The cops control the “hard facts”. You have ZERO chance of seeing hard facts that implicate the police.”
If having respect for and giving the benefit of the doubt to police officers who do a dangerous and mostly thankless job for our benefit is being part of the problem then I am happy to be problematic. There are first hand accounts that will come out and we shall see.
“...I also hold police officers in high regard.”
You haven’t been in Florida lately, have you? if you were, you might not be saying that.
The overwhelming majority of law enforcement personnel are in favor of the 2nd Amendment. In fact, a huge majority stated in polls that they would REFUSE to obey any orders to confiscate the weapons of private citizens.
In fact 88% of officers surveyed stated that they do not believe that tighter restrictions on gun ownership would affect crime rates.
Almost 66% stated that they would REFUSE to obey orders to confiscate weapons from civilians if a new gun ban were passed.
Real conservatives respect the police and support them in the job that they do. Liberal radicals and libertines do not.
From a witness, as posted by Mark Twain;
““I couldn’t agree with you more....My wife and I were 7 or 8 feet away from the shooting as were the police. We were to the suspects immediate right. We heard and saw the 3 police officers shouting to the man in question to ‘get on your knees’ several times. At that point the man appeared somewhat stunned by the commotion and shouting of the police. His Right arm went up in a defenseless position and it appeared his left arm appeared to be going up but there was NO gun in his hand. He was taserd and shot at the same time. At no time did the man in question ever raise his voice, shout an obscenity or become confrontational with the police. We saw the disabled man stooping to his right facing us with what appeared to be a bullet wound in his upper chest with blood coming from the wound and immediately his eyes became glossy as he began to convulse. At this point he was no threat to anyone, both hands were in full view of us and there was no gun. As he was down, the police continued to shout ‘put the gun down’ several times...but there was no gun in his hand as we had full vantage point view. The injured man was having agonal respirations, he was down when the second volly of bullets rang out. There was no doubt in question that following the second barrage of bullets the man was dead. His girlfriend was to the back side of us and began to scream.....why did you kill him, he is a military man with a license to carry a concealed weapon. You didn’t need to kill him....you didn’t need to kill him.
An officer then came up to the injured man who in my opinion was a ‘dead’ man’, was cuffed with his hands behind his back and no attempt by the officer to determine if the man was alive or dead. No apparent life saving aid was given to the ‘downed’ man. The man was totally lifeless when the Paramedics arrived on scene. I was absolutely surprised to see that no attempt at aggressive ACLS was engaged. They simply just picked up the body like a ‘sack of potatoes’ and hurled him onto the gurney and into the ambulance This was a crime scene.... the crime scene was violated. One of the paramedics who attended to an injured elderly lady said the man was dead. There was a dead man in front of Costco. What nobody is talking about is that there were many many spectators, many like ourselves within just a few feet of the victim when the shots rang out. It seems to me that the greater danger was posed not by the victim but by the police who fired many shots in the vicinity of the innocent public. I agree with you, I hope the media and your friends family can get their hands of Costco’s Camera’s which will indeed tell the rest of the story. Also it must be confirmed whether the second gun supposedly found by the victims side was indeed also registered to him as a licensed conceal and carry.
This whole incident was a monumental tragedy; a tragedy for the family and friend and also a tragedy for the involved officers who were pushed into a needless confrontation that reached hysterical proportions due to the overreaction of certain employees and bystanders. This was a needless death.
In summary it is our opinion that the victim did not pose an immediate threat to the public.....and in the final analysis was a case of excessive force”
Here is a link to the discussion where the account was posted:
So does this mean some other witness say it was in his hand or it was not in his holster? What a mess of a reporting job.
Las Vegas is corrupt. No cop has been found at fault for shooting an unarmed person in 20 years.
There are over 40 witnesses as per early news accounts. Only 12 of them partially agree with the cops scenario.
Cripes, if I didn’t know the shooting took place in Nevada dn someone asked me to bet on where this happened, I’d have said Florida.
Nope. I'd have said in Las Vegas. A couple of decades back there was a mob bagman who had skipped with The Boys' money, and spent it in Vegas. It took them about three weeks to track him down and connect with him.
His body was found out in the desert, with twelve bullets from two different guns in him. I was told it was ruled a suicide, which, I suppose, it sort of was.
Officer Involved in Costco Shooting Involved in 2006 Shooting"
There've been some shootings of *unarmed* subjects, but the last one in which the LVPD officer was found to be criminally at fault was in 1976.
There’s been quite a bit posted on Scott threads about the corrupt LV cops.
Maybe it’s called Sin City for more reason than just the casino gambling.
As I mentioned the other day, Sequioa Pearce was made to kneel before the Las Vegas police officers who held her at gunpoint in her bedroom Friday night, June 11, and watch them shoot her unarmed fiance in the head.
The 20-year-old, who was nine months pregnant, could see her fiance, Trevon Cole, reflected in the mirror from the bathroom, where he, too, was being held at gunpoint as officers told him to get on the floor. He met her gaze in the mirror. She watched him put his hands up.
“All right, all right,” he said to police, according to Pearce.
Then she heard the shot. The man she planned to marry slid to the floor, blood pouring from a gunshot wound — some have reported a shotgun blast — to the face.
Officers rushed her out of the apartment. Trevon Cole, 21, died minutes later.
I found a stark cultural division within the only PD I ever got to know well. The jurisdiction was a very large, very crime ridden city. I could add “liberal” but that would be redundant. What Colin Powell dignifies with the term “urban values” was pervasive within the population.
Out of the force of approximately 1,250 POs, about 4 dozen made about 75% of the arrests. The crime lab was also very good and quite dedicated. The four dozen, plus the crime lab, plus about 10 brass fit your descriptions very well.
The remaining roughly 1,150 were generally idle, ineffectual, unfit and definitely more liberal. I suspect the character of various PDs varies a great deal depending on the specific location and population.
A Freeper said the LV mayor is/was a mob lawyer.
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