CHL holder killed by police in Las Vegas at a Costco

[philip964]

I noticed tonight in a TV preview for "Rookie Blue" that the young female rookie is presented with a BG pointing a weapon at her. She has her weapon pointed at the BG and she yells "drop the gun" but does not fire.

I think that is the general view of television police is that they will give you the opportunity to put down your weapon, and only if you fail to do that after several requests then maybe they will shoot, but probably you have to shoot first and naturally miss before they will actually ever fire.

[Excaliber]

On March 24, 2010, Costco announced (pdf) that they had selected Virtual Surveillance as their video surveillance vendor. The press release reads, in part,

“Security personnel are faced with an overwhelming volume of video and data, making it difficult to pinpoint events of genuine importance” said John Mitchell, VP of sales at Virtual Surveillance. “Our digital surveillance systems offer behavior recognition and forensic analysis to help save time and zero in on relevant and critical data.

Virtual Surveillance handles several Vegas casinos, and their surveillance systems are state of the art. The contract called for beginning the installations in Texas. Hopefully the system was in place at the Summerlin store and the video will be made available at the inquest. That's the only way we will know what really happened, both inside and outside the store.

One of the challenges the forensic investigation will face is that, in sophisticated modern surveillance systems, the information needed to locate specific video recordings is stored in a database that is maintained by the system's software on the server that is the heart of the system. The video images themselves are stored in a hard drive on the digital video recording unit, which was reportedly seized as evidence. The database is the "map" that allows the user to retrieve the images he wants.

When the recorder's hard drive is examined without the software and database, there is no "map" of where the images from a particular camera in a particular time frame are located on the drive. Finding the recording you want is not easy. It would be somewhat like trying to find a single document file on your computer if you couldn't see the folder and file structure that organizes your data and the file names weren't in English. This may well be the "technical difficulty" referred to in the news.

[5thGenTexan]

I've purposely stayed off this thread and read it with a slightly different view than most similar ones in the past. I find it amusing that some of the responses people have let totally unverified "eye/ear witness" accounts color their view of wheather to carry or not, who did right or wrong.

This will most likely prove to be somewhere in the middle of the extremes like most. Everything I've seen so far indicates a series of poor decisions and tragic failure to think things through resulted in a good mans death in his prime.

Unfortunately there is no way to know how any one person will act or react in any given situation. Why do we including myself always seem to jump onto one side or another before the facts all come out? Why does a tragic situation always have to be the cops fault, the "victims" fault, or the "BG" fault. In this case the cop is self evident, the victim is Eric, the BG is Costco Staff.

I have a feeling when all of this shakes out, this will be a mixture of overreaction by the store staff, possible poor cover decision and reaction or movement by Eric, unclear and confusing orders from officers that may be on the aggressive end of the spectrum and/or poorly trained.

Could this have been prevented? Sure a lot of ways, not all would be considered options by most on this forum. Could this have been prevented in this case? Most assuradly with any of a host of very minor nuances changed. Will it stop most CHL's from carrying? Not likely.

I will wait to make any judgement as to where the fault lies for this tragic situation till all the results are in.

[Excaliber]

I've purposely stayed off this thread and read it with a slightly different view than most similar ones in the past. I find it amusing that some of the responses people have let totally unverified "eye/ear witness" accounts color their view of wheather to carry or not, who did right or wrong.

This will most likely prove to be somewhere in the middle of the extremes like most. Everything I've seen so far indicates a series of poor decisions and tragic failure to think things through resulted in a good mans death in his prime.

Unfortunately there is no way to know how any one person will act or react in any given situation. Why do we including myself always seem to jump onto one side or another before the facts all come out? Why does a tragic situation always have to be the cops fault, the "victims" fault, or the "BG" fault. In this case the cop is self evident, the victim is Eric, the BG is Costco Staff.

I have a feeling when all of this shakes out, this will be a mixture of overreaction by the store staff, possible poor cover decision and reaction or movement by Eric, unclear and confusing orders from officers that may be on the aggressive end of the spectrum and/or poorly trained.

Could this have been prevented? Sure a lot of ways, not all would be considered options by most on this forum. Could this have been prevented in this case? Most assuradly with any of a host of very minor nuances changed. Will it stop most CHL's from carrying? Not likely.

I will wait to make any judgement as to where the fault lies for this tragic situation till all the results are in.

Catastrophic incidents (other than natural disasters) don't happen because of a single action or failure. They occur as the culmination of a complex series of smaller events that have individually gone wrong before and haven't been recognized and corrected, or have been recognized but neglected, so they are primed to happen again.

The difference in a catastrophe is that a series of these things all happen together in the same place at the same time to produce the major event. This is true of train wrecks, vehicle accidents, whitewater rafting and sky diving deaths, and plane crashes. It also happens in the management of potentially violent incidents with deadly force.

I would expect that a thorough and impartial investigation will find the same thing here with contributing errors by all the major parties involved. I think we'll also see that most of them, if they had happened alone and other of the parties had acted differently, would not have resulted in the tragedy that happened. It's only the combination of all of them in sequence that produced the sad event we've seen here. There will be plenty of blame to go around, and lots of "if only's" that could have changed the outcome but didn't.

[seamusTX]

Why do we including myself always seem to jump onto one side or another before the facts all come out?

Most of the contributors of this forum are going to sympathize with the defender or legally armed citizen because we identify with that role. Sometimes we are wrong. I have been wrong in my initial opinions more than once.

That said, waiting for all the facts to come out is tantamount to waiting forever. Are all the facts known about the JFK assassination? The causes of the War Between the States? The Boston Massacre?

Sometimes public outrage over a case brings attention that the case otherwise would not receive and leads to greater openness.

- Jim

[GeekwithaGun]

I noticed tonight in a TV preview for "Rookie Blue" that the young female rookie is presented with a BG pointing a weapon at her. She has her weapon pointed at the BG and she yells "drop the gun" but does not fire.

I think that is the general view of television police is that they will give you the opportunity to put down your weapon, and only if you fail to do that after several requests then maybe they will shoot, but probably you have to shoot first and naturally miss before they will actually ever fire.

I watched the episode, the rookie forgot to load her weapon at the station and when she drew on the BG, realized there was no magazine in the pistol and no spare mags on her belt Her only recourse at that point was to talk him into dropping the gun.

[bayouhazard]

Humans are wired to reach conclusions with incomplete information. Most of us do it many times each day. Sometimes we are right. Sometimes we are wrong. However, as Jim points out, we often never know ALL the facts.

Some people say this is a product of modern life but I disagree. Our prehistorical ancestors who ran or climbed trees when they thought maybe they saw a lion had a better chance of survival. Those who didn't rush to judgement and waited until they were sure it was a lion, limited their response time. Those who were really indecisive and considered the possibility that perhaps THIS lion is the vegetarian exception and didn't reach their conclusion until the lion was chewing on their leg...

[Beiruty]

We do give opinions based on the relayed stories, whether true, false or somehow between. We are not in court and we are not producing conviction nor imposing a life sentence.

What I do not like is why in the world the investigation should drag till September? Memory fade quickly especially for old folks who might be at the scene.
Also, If the investigators can't go over digital video in some 48hrs something is really not right.

[seamusTX]

Investigators have workloads and must balance their priorities. It simply is not like "CSI" where they have no personal life and solve every case in 50 minutes.

Also, the police at every level have to fight for their budget like every other government department. I have shown several times how the Texas DPS budget stays level or goes down in absolute dollars every year.

- Jim

[WildBill]

Investigators have workloads and must balance their priorities. It simply is not like "CSI" where they have no personal life and solve every case in 50 minutes. - Jim

And they don't have a girl computer geek in the backroom who can search hundreds of databases that can match a carpet fiber found at the crime scene and tell you, in less-than-a-minute, that it was bought at the Las Vegas Costco.

[Pinkycatcher]

Investigators have workloads and must balance their priorities. It simply is not like "CSI" where they have no personal life and solve every case in 50 minutes.

Also, the police at every level have to fight for their budget like every other government department. I have shown several times how the Texas DPS budget stays level or goes down in absolute dollars every year.

- Jim

This is true, but I'm not seeing any CSI level information needed. There's no doubt in anyone's mind that he was shot by these police, they just need to look at the video, do a tox report on Eric, get the witnesses information and statements and then report the findings. There's little other evidence, no real need to find out how many people's blood there was on his body, or quarantining off the scene so they can go through it with a fine tooth combed, or reproductions in 3d software of the events. I think a possible murder/death is something that is high up on any PD's list of things to pay for, I doubt any PD would skimp on this so they can catch a couple more petty theft criminals. Of course they could just skimp over the investigation and say they didn't, which is plausible because again it's cops investigating cops, I would probably do the same if I was in the situation, so would everyone else, that's what makes it a problem.

And the question is, does the DPS budget level stay level or go down in relative dollars, with account for inflation?

[baldeagle]

What complicates the issue is that the incident involves Costco employees reporting Erik's behavior to 911. If the video documents that Costco employees lied or exaggerated, that will cost the company a lot of money. If that were true, they would have a vested interest in those videos never seeing the light of day. Since the DVR was seized by the police and the hard drive has been sent to California for forensic analysis, that ship has sailed. IF the video shows a dramatically different picture of Erik than the one described to police, that would be very bad for Costco. I suspect the video of the shooting will be much more ambiguous. Unless the camera(s?) had a clear view of Erik's hands, it may not be possible to determine whether or not he actually had a gun in his hand. So even if the video is available, it may not resolve that issue one way or the other. The best that both Costco and the LVPD can hope for is that the video shows a man acting erractically, behaving somewhat unhinged and heading out of the store in what appears to be an emotionally disturbed state.

After everything I've read about this case (which is quite a lot), I'd hazard a guess that the inquest will find the shooting excusable (there are three possibilities; justified, excusable or criminal) and Costco and the City of Las Vegas will be paying a lot of money to fund the newly established Erik Scott Foundation.

But I could be wrong.

[WildBill]

After everything I've read about this case (which is quite a lot), I'd hazard a guess that the inquest will find the shooting excusable (there are three possibilities; justified, excusable or criminal) and Costco and the City of Las Vegas will be paying a lot of money to fund the newly established Erik Scott Foundation.

Why would Costco or the City of Las Vegas pay for an "excusable" shooting?

[seamusTX]

This is true, but I'm not seeing any CSI level information needed. There's no doubt in anyone's mind that he was shot by these police, they just need to look at the video, do a tox report on Eric, get the witnesses information and statements and then report the findings.

This is all true, but Mr. Scott is dead. He isn't going to become more or less dead. The officers who shot him are known. They are not going anywhere; or if they do, they become fugitives. The DA has at least three years to file charges, maybe longer (I don't know).

Meanwhile the family's lawyer is obtaining subpeonas and conducting investigations that are going to consume the time of police personnel, and no one wants to be found to have made a mistake or omission.

And the question is, does the DPS budget level stay level or go down in relative dollars, with account for inflation?

The DPS budget is constant in U.S. dollars, which means it is worth less in real terms every year. However, employees generally are not bargaining for wage increases, so the impact is not much in this economy.

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Why would Costco or the City of Las Vegas pay for an "excusable" shooting?

I call it "shut up and go away money."

Defendants or their insurers often settle just to get rid of a case and/or keep it out of the news.

- Jim

[baldeagle]

After everything I've read about this case (which is quite a lot), I'd hazard a guess that the inquest will find the shooting excusable (there are three possibilities; justified, excusable or criminal) and Costco and the City of Las Vegas will be paying a lot of money to fund the newly established Erik Scott Foundation.

Why would Costco or the City of Las Vegas pay for an "excusable" shooting?

The excusable ruling would be for the shooting. The reasoning I can see the inquest ruling using is that the reports from Costco led the police to be on a higher level of alert, which led them to shoot quicker than they might otherwise have or should have. I doubt seriously that the inquest would find their behavior criminal unless the video clearly shows that Erik never held a gun in his hand. Costco would be on the hook civilly for contributing to the image that led the police to shoot when they didn't need to.

Think of it this way. Costco calls 911 and says, we have a customer who is legally carrying but has not left when he was asked to. We'd like you to come and escort him from the store.

What would the police reaction have been? One or two cruisers, possibly three officers, they approach him inside the store and discuss the issue with him. They tell him that if he doesn't leave immediately, they will have to arrest him.

But Costco said they had a man with a gun, destroying merchandise, possibly on drugs or emotionally disturbed. The reaction of the police is quite different. Who is responsible for the police response? The police base their response on the report they get from the dispatcher, who is relaying information from the 911 call. They have no way of knowing that Erik isn't a threat, that yes he's armed, but he's licensed and he's behaving normally. (That's assuming that he wasn't a threat.) So if Costco's report to 911 was exaggeration or outright lies, they are civilly liable for Erik's death. Las Vegas would be on the hook civilly if the police reaction was found to be extreme. Especially if it can't be proven that Erik was pointing his gun at them.

Remember, in civil court the case is decided on the preponderance of the evidence, not beyond a reasonable doubt. That's a much easier burden of proof. That's why OJ was found not guilty of criminal charges but was judged liable for the wrongful deaths of Nicole and Ron in the civil trial.