baldeagle wrote:Having reread some of my posts, I want to be very clear about my thinking. Erik Scott would be alive today if he had simply followed the officer's orders. He made a terrible mistake by attempting to surrender his weapon to the officer, and he paid with his life. I believe Erik was offended that he was being challenged by the officers (based on testimony) and irked that his 2A rights were being questioned. Similar sentiments have been expressed here by members of this forum. The one takeaway I devoutly pray that we all get from this horrible incident is that when LEOs challenge you, obey immediately, without arguing and without questioning and never touch your weapon under any circumstances. Even if you have to swallow giant chunks of pride and belief, shut up and obey immediately. There will be plenty of time later to sort out who was right and who was wrong and to file complaints if you feel your rights were violated. If you do not obey immediately and without resistance, you may never get the chance to complain about your rights.
I believe this was a bad shoot. I believe Officer Mosher is a bad cop who should be dismissed from the force and never allowed to serve in law enforcement anywhere again. I believe the two rookies who fired made a terrible mistake initiated by adrenaline and possibly fear but precipitated by Mosher's abysmal lack of judgment. He was the senior officer. He is responsible for the outcome. He should be and needs to be held accountable. I'm unsure whether criminal charges should be brought against him, but I'm leaning toward the opinion that they should be. I think manslaughter is an appropriate charge. I hope and pray the inquest jury rules the shooting, at a minimum, as excusable but wish they would rule it criminal. Given the outcome of all previous inquests, I don't hold out much hope of that. I fear the verdict will be justified. That would be a travesty.
As further information comes out, the list of likely scenarios gets refined as is normally the case. From the testimony so far, it appears that Erik attempted to follow the first part of the guideline above when he was told to "Drop it". Since the gun wasn't in his hand, the only way to comply was to retrieve it from his waistband. He hadn't considered the second part, which in that instance was contradictory. I'd be willing to bet the vast majority of our Forum members hadn't given thought to this circumstance prior to the Las Vegas tragedy either.
As I pointed out in one of my earliest posts on this thread, the tactical management of the situation by the responding officers was absolutely atrocious, needlessly exposed everyone involved to extreme danger, and the fact that it produced a tragic result is not surprising. The only part I do find surprising is that with so many people so nearby no one else was hurt by the police gunfire.
As is true with vehicle wrecks, aircraft crashes, and industrial catastrophes (think BP oil rig blowout), a competent investigation always reveals that the event occurred as it did not due to a single factor or error, but at the end of a cascading stream of issues like bad training, equipment failures, misinformation or misinterpretation of good information, bad judgment, etc. I expect that when the final truth comes out (and I think it will because Erik's father will push it as long as he is alive) we will find incompetence and poor judgment on the part of Costco employees, incompetence, poor judgment, poor training or poor retention of training, and the eagerness to take a life I have discussed in other threads on the police side, and a lack of knowledge of how to manage a confrontation with badly performing police as well as possible impairment of judgment from pain medication on Erik's side were all contributing factors.
There may be others as well. Only time, evidence, and testimony will tell.
