TexasCHLforum.com

baldeagle wrote:

Beiruty wrote:Wow imagine if there was a real video that clearly captured the incident. Imagine that such video shows up in court. Are those who testified would be proven to lie under oath?

All witnesses in the inquest are sworn in just as in a court proceeding. So I would assume their testimony is exposed to charges of perjury if it can be proven that they lied under oath.

Do you actually think that cops would be prosecuted for this? I think I've read enough accounts of bad arrests and bad reports and lying under oath and have seen maybe one or two actually be prosecuted if that.

philip964 wrote: I also have heard that the Las Vegas police cars are not equipped with video.

Can you source this? But either way it would not surprise me if the cruisers simply wern't facing the incident. (Or it was corrupt data or something, which happens all too often, but of course I don't know here)

seamusTX wrote: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 wrote: EDIT: Erik's shooting was the seventeenth police shooting this year. The department averages 20 police shootings per year or one every 2.6 weeks. I having trouble finding Dallas officer involved shootings statistics, but I doubt seriously they are anywhere near that high.

That's a pretty big jump, 17 already this year and we're only halfway through the year? In 2009 Houston had 29 or so shootings by police (http://www.myfoxhouston.com/dpp/news/lo ... der-debate" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) and Houston is about 4 times larger than Vegas and only has 1.5 times as many shootings. I think this would exponentially increase with size (bigger cities have exponentially more shootings as smaller). With just a cursory glance it looks like either Vegas needs to train better (probably) or Houston is extremely well trained and skilled (probably not)

Keith B wrote: This is from the 15th, so kinda out-dated. Sounds fishy to me, but then again, I run a surveillance system in our buildings. I have had a couple of instances when it looks like things are OK when the recorder is actually having issues and not capturing video.

It is kind of outdated, but it is a legitimate news source, and I can see how we in Texas would miss it, as it's from a Vegas station. I bet you I could walk in any Costsco right now, walk to the back of the store, grab an item, and walk straight out to my car and they would present my entire trip without fail from my car back to my car at my trial. Again I think this is highly suspect as both Costco and the police (both of whom are in charge of tapes) have incentives to not show an event that turns out bad for them. I would think the same if the girlfriend had a tape of the incident and it showed up technically wrong.

Don't think this has been posted but the video in this case is having "technical difficulties"

http://www.8newsnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=12816105" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

dubya wrote: (understandable while investigation goes on)

Why is it understandable? I'm just curious, I'm not seeing the argument for withholding this information.

What is also a bummer is that both Cotsco and the Police have incentives to present their side of the story that presents them in the best of light, but Erik is not alive to present his side of the story. Maybe he was asked to leave immediately, maybe he was asked to finish his shopping and leave quickly, or maybe he was told to head to the check out line "now" (whenever he was told) and to leave, the latter two notices both not being the same as being told to leave the property.

baldeagle wrote:Someone has posted what purports to be the radio traffic for the call. Either Erik was behaving completely out of character or the Costco employees blew the situation completely out of proportion.

EDIT: Some people questioned the veracity of the transcript. This post on the Nevada Shooters Forum points to the archive of the radio traffic and a download of that traffic that you can play yourself. According to the Costco employee(s?) that called 911, the police were expecting a man with a gun, possibly high on drugs or emotionally disturbed, who was destroying merchandise, acting erratically and refusing to leave. That is quite a bit different from the description witnesses have given of the scene. I imagine police would have been on high alert, and any action on Erik's part other than hands over his head would have been interpreted as a threat. The Costco folks put the police in an untenable position.

I just read the transcript, though I didn't listen to the actual radio, but I could easily see that the Cotsco employees called and gave highly elevated series of events. On the low end it could have gone like this:

Erik was tearing open a package to see if it fit or how it feeled, with the intention of buying (I've done it before) and an employee noticed and raised an alert, Erik could have been crouching low to the floor for whatever reason (I do that all the time in stores) and been printing. This employee then alerted the chain of command who escalated the situation, yelling could have just raising the voice, I've yelled at employees before when they get particularly dense. Erik could have been in a Catch-22, leave the store and be arrested for shoplifting/destruction of property, or pay for merchandise and be arrested for failure to conceal/trespassing, so he had no good options. The police responded to a crazed man with a gun yelling and acting crazy and since they were young (24 months on the job is the oldest, and with a prior incident) had too much going on in their heads.

Or obviously the Cotsco employees could have been telling the whole truth and Erik did break character and go bezerk

seamusTX wrote:

Pinkycatcher wrote:How would video muddy the waters?

Video shows only what happened in front of the camera, and only from one angle. It does not show what happened before or after, or out of view. It does not show things from the point of view of people on the ground.

This problem has existed since practical photography was developed. People take a photo or now video as "proof." It is nothing of the sort. It can be biased and subjective, even if not outright fabricated.

- Jim

Very true, but I would expect video that Cotsco has to show what happened inside the store, both as he was exiting, and most likely what happened when he talked with the employee, and when he checked out. Also I would expect the store to show what happened in the incident proper, granted only from one view, but possibly more. Have you ever seen a walmart parking lot? They have a cluster of 3 cameras arranged on the roof covering the lots at about ever 40-50 foot intervals, I don't know what Cotsco has, but often cameras now-a-days are cheap enough that a store would have little problem having overlapping video.

So you are right, but I do think my argument has merits also. Again, this is all up in the air and we just don't know enough.

baldeagle wrote: Someone has posted what purports to be the radio traffic for the call. Either Erik was behaving completely out of character or the Costco employees blew the situation completely out of proportion.

I think the video from inside the store will show which one it was, I hope Cotsco employees didn't blow it out of proportion as that is generally not a good thing and shows lack of control of a situation.

jinzai wrote: Sure, the witness reports differ, but they always do in cases like this. Video, if it exists, may corroborate one or another witness account, or muddy the waters further.

How would video muddy the waters?

I never did understand why police departments are always so reluctant to release video or audio evidence. Is there a legal reason? Excalibur? Chas? I guess if it does show you are wrong then you can't find a truly unbiased jury, but then again, if it shows you are wrong, well you're wrong. But if it shows you're right and you release it then you have a much easier time and don't have to deal with FOIA requests, people dogging you all the time, mistrust.

In other words, the only rational reason I can see (I'm of course no cop, nor no lawyer) is that departments don't release this stuff because then they can't cover their selves with a heavy duty lawyer team that the department/union pays for.

As far as one of the cops having already shot somebody, I'm not going to count this incident or that incident as either justified or non-justified, and they have little relation to one another, if this one is justified than he just got the unlucky ticket in job options, if it was unjustified than he either has bad luck (the past one was justified) or he is habitually not the best decider of actions.

With that said, subscribing to this topic so I can keep up, please keep this going, I'd really hate to have people forget about it.

Quahog wrote:
Police say when they approached the suspect, he drew a weapon and pointed it at officers. After refusing to drop the weapon, three officers fired multiple rounds, striking the suspect numerous times.

This is what has me, of course the police are going to say that, that's the only way to justify their shooting, so they along with witnesses in the family shouldn't be held as reliable witnesses. Of course witness testimony in itself is always kind of sketchy, and video evidence would be the best, I hope they find it and if these cops shot an unarmed man then they need to be held accountable (unlikely), but if they were justified then I have no remorse for the CHL holder here.

But I just hope they find conclusive video evidence either way.