(May30, 2013) For the second time in three years, police have killed a person named Scott at a Costco store. Loudon County Sheriff’s Deputies shot and killed Mhai Scott, a sub-contractor handing out pizza samples at a Costco store in Sterling, Virginia, on May 29. In 2010, Las Vegas Metro Police Officers shot and killed Erik Scott as he walked out of a suburban Costco store. The only thing the two Scotts seem to have in common is their last names and the location and manner of their deaths. Erik Scott was a West Point graduate with an MBA from Duke University who enjoyed body building and was a pharmaceutical sales rep. Mhai Scott was a petite, 38-year old, divorced, Pilipina mother of two young children, whose ex-husband was in the US military.
A witness who had contact with Mhai Scott shortly before she was killed said she was very nice and polite, but a store employee called police saying she was acting erratically and threatening fellow employees with a pair of scissors and a knife. Witnesses described Loudon County Sheriff’s Deputies rushing in toward the employee lounge asking about a woman. A few moments later, 5 shots rang out and Mhai Scott was dead.
Police say that one officer attempted to subdue the woman with a Taser, but that the Taser “failed.” As is typical when one officer deploys a Taser, the second officer had his sidearm out as backup. The problem with this tactic is that if the Taser fails to do the job, whether through malfunction, operator error, or obstruction, the backup officer’s pistol becomes the only readily available option. There isn’t time to re-holster weapons and shift to a different approach. So when the Taser didn’t work as expected, and the woman “advanced,” the only option available to keep her from harming anyone was to shoot her. The two officers involved have been put on paid administrative leave pending an investigation, as is standard in police shootings.
Reaction to the shooting was mixed, with people being generally supportive of the police, but questioning the way events escalated so rapidly to the point of using deadly force, and the need to shoot the woman 5 times.
When police are involved in a shooting, the key legal question is always whether, at the moment the officer pulled the trigger, he was justified in doing so – regardless of the factors leading up to that moment. When a citizen without a badge shoots someone, events leading up to that moment are critically analyzed. Typically, if the shooter did anything to escalate the situation, or didn’t do something he could have done to deescalate the situation, he’s going to face some serious repercussions. Also, a private citizen must be in reasonable fear of imminent serious injury or death before a shooting will be considered justified. Typically, police officers must only show that the subject was armed and threatening.
In the case of Erik Scott, the simple fact that he was armed was enough to clear the officers involved. Mr. Scott was legally carrying a concealed handgun while shopping in Costco and the gun became visible when he bent over to look at some merchandise. A store manager informed Scott of Costco’s corporate “No Guns” policy, and they agreed that Scott could finish up his shopping without having to disarm. But a store employee placed a call to Las Vegas Metro Police saying that a man with a gun was acting erratic in the store and scaring patrons. When police arrived they ordered the evacuation of the store and when Erik Scott walked out with his girlfriend and the rest of the crowd, he was confronted by officers who yelled conflicting instructions and then opened fire – shooting Erik Scott 7 times. Only 5 to 6 seconds elapsed between the officer’s first command and the last shot. A Coroner’s Inquest found the shooting to be justified because Scott was armed and didn’t “immediately” obey officers’ instructions.
Erik Scott’s father, William Scott, has written a detailed account of what happened that day and included it in a recently released novel called The Permit, which is available electronically at http://thepermit.blogspot.com/ and should be out in paperback next month.
Regardless of other details of these two shootings, neither Erik Scott nor Mhai Scott had to die. Had police employed different tactics, had they approached the situations with different attitudes, had they had better information and been better trained, both of these people could be alive today. No one gets the advantage of a pause and rewind in life. Officers can’t stop in mid-stride and reevaluate a dangerous situation. But after the fact, lessons can be learned. Second guessing police actions is not “police bashing,” it is a critical part of the learning process. These people didn’t need to die. How do we change police tactics and training to reduce the chances of these types of tragedies being repeated? What’s been being done so far doesn’t seem to be working.