Comments (70) | Add a comment
Judge to rule this week on lawsuit in Costco shooting
Tools
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
A federal judge will decide by the end of the week whether a wrongful death lawsuit should be dismissed against Clark County and Sheriff Doug Gillespie over their alleged roles in the July 10 police shooting death of Erik Scott outside a Summerlin Costco.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Stephanie Barker told Senior U.S. District Judge Edward Reed that Clark County has no formal relationship with Las Vegas police and therefore can't be a co-defendant in the high-profile case.
Meanwhile, attorneys for the sheriff said Gillespie should not be a party to the lawsuit in any capacity because the claims lodged by attorney Ross Goodman, who represents Scott's parents, Bill and Linda Scott, did not meet federal guidelines in presenting allegations in a lawsuit.
In essence, attorney Joshua Benson said the allegations Goodman raised in the lawsuit did not meet a requirement that they be "plausible."
Reed indicated that Goodman met the burden. "That sounds plausible to me," he said on several separate occasions as a handful of the 11 allegations listed in the lawsuit were discussed.
Goodman in January voluntarily dismissed Costco and Costco employee Shai Lierly from the federal lawsuit, but that doesn't mean the wholesale giant is out of trouble.
After Wednesday's hearing, Goodman said both Costco and Lierly, who called 911 to report that Erik Scott was acting erratically, would be named later in a state lawsuit. "What they (Costco and Lierly) did isn't covered under the federal laws," said Goodman, adding that there was sufficient time to file the lawsuit before the two-year statute of limitations expires .
The Scotts think Costco, through poor training of its employees, unnecessarily created a hazardous situation that led to their son's death. They also think Las Vegas police and Clark County failed to properly train their employees.
No attempt was made to remove from the lawsuit the Las Vegas police department or police officers William Mosher, Joshua Stark and Thomas Mendiola, who were involved in Scott's killing.
In an unrelated matter, Mendiola recently was indicted on a gun charge.
A coroner's inquest jury last September found police were justified in Scott's killing. At the time, Goodman said the system was "one-sided." Since then, in response to a rash of controversial officer-involved shootings, the county and police have changed the process.
In arguing to have the county removed from the lawsuit, Barker said a 1973 merger between the county and city law enforcement agencies that created the Metropolitan Police Department granted the department autonomy -- and relieved the county of any liability when its officers were subject to lawsuits similar to what the Scott family filed.
Goodman said Clark County is a valid defendant and told the judge that Barker's explanation was not as cut and dried as she made it sound. He said that Clark County employees sit on a fiscal affairs committee that distributes revenue to police, that there is a county-managed police officer review board and that the county oversees the coroner's inquest process.
"They want to hide behind statutes that created Metro," Goodman said, "but there are other laws regarding the county's responsibilities."
But Barker told the judge the fiscal affairs committee addresses only budgetary issues and not the planning and operations of Las Vegas police. She also noted that Gillespie is independently elected and that he alone is the policymaker for Las Vegas police.
Goodman said the law that created Las Vegas police department does not have any language that absolves the county of its responsibility.
A dig from Barker made the hearing personal when she questioned why the city of Las Vegas was not also named as a defendant. Goodman, the son of Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman and mayoral candidate Carolyn Goodman, said after the hearing that the city was not included because Las Vegas does not control the police department's budget to the same extent as does the county.
Goodman also said he expects Reed will rule in the Scott family's favor. "The judge asked a lot of questions, and I think he will lean our way and then we can start the discovery process."
The Scotts think the police officers used excessive force when they shot their son, a 38-year-old West Point graduate and Army veteran. But Scott also appeared to have personal demons.
Scott, who had a permit to carry at least one concealed weapon, was armed with two handguns at the time of his death. His autopsy reportedly showed near lethal levels of the painkiller morphine and the anti-anxiety drug Xanax.
Contact Doug McMurdo at dmcmurdo@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5512.
Comments
Terms & Conditions
The following comments are provided by readers and are the sole responsiblity of the authors. The Review-Journal does not review comments before publication nor guarantee their accuracy. By publishing a comment here you agree to abide by the comment policy. If you see a comment that violates the policy, please use the Report Abuse button.
Some comments may not display immediately due to an automatic filter. These comments will be reviewed within 24 hours. Please do not submit a comment more than once.
Note: Comments made by reporters and editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal are presented with a yellow background.
RSS
Twitter
Facebook
SummerlinCC... "Erik Scott was never a threat to anyone." That pretty well sums it up!
@Chester: Erik Scott was never a threat to anyone. In fact, by the time the police could even pick him out of the crowd, he and his girlfriend had walked casually by them towards their car. Why couldn't they ID him? Quite simply, Scott WAS NOT acting erratically. This boils down to a Costco employee that freaked out because someone was carrying a guy in the store and Metro officers who reacted based on adrenaline instead of training.
If the proper police tactics had been used, Erik Scott would not be dead today. That' is the bottom line.
bghs1986.... agreed!
@Chester, "I guess the Scott family would be happy if Eric had lived after killing multiple employees of Costco, bystanders and officers." While I have consistently supported the cops use of force here and have agreed with the inquest findings, there was NOTHING to support your fear mongering. There is not a shred of evidence to suggest that had Costco never called 911 then Scott would have made his purchase and went hiking at Red Rock. And the assertion that this was suicide by cop is equally ignorant.
And then there is this.... many do not understand the concept of a the use of deadly force by our police. The purpose is not to "kill" (although many wish it was) ... the police in this country are not the "Judge, Jury and Executioner"... the purpose of such use is to "stop" the aggressor. Knowing this, many people ask why the police didn't shoot the gun (knife, whatever) out of the suspects hand? Why not shoot them in the leg or something? Why the body? Easy to answer... because in a stressful shooting situation (unlike at a gun range) it's too easy to miss so police are taught to shoot at "center mass" ( i.e. the biggest target...the body). Most are taught to "double tap" (i.e. two quick shots at the target) and if that does the job... fine. If not, more shots. Mosher fired two quick shots at Scott... even so, he missed "center mass" with his second shot which hit Scott in the thigh and Mosher was standing only a few feet away from his target. But Scott went down... he was unarmed at that point and was still shot multiple times. In the most recent Metro shooting the unarmed suspect who had been tazed twice and was still trying to get to his feet after flopping around on the floor for several minutes, was shot eight times in the chest at pointblank range. Aghhhhhhhhhhhh......
Tiwaz... I think the point TankerUSMA was trying to make is that all three officers were relatively new and multiple gunshots, especially in the back while the "unarmed" suspect is lying on the ground is an unnecessary use of force. The Inquest testimony revealed that Mosher fired two shots from a .45 cal pistol at Scott. One round hit him in the upper chest and the other in thigh. The impact of the first round caused Scott to drop the weapon he had pulled from his waistband and it fell, still in its holster, in front of him. As he fell he turned to his right away from Mosher and the other two officers fired. One officer fired once.... the other, four times. It is clear from the corner's report that some of the rounds hit him as he lay on the ground due to the trajectory of the bullets through the body. Had the only shots fired been Mosher's... Scott may have survived.
TankerUSMA has obviously never actually been in a gunfight..
Too much tv watching white hats vs black hats. Oh no! the "good guy" shot the bad guy in the back?!?! Oh, the horror!!
Grow up.
Chester.... you're right of course. It's clear that Scott intended to kill everyone at Costco that day.... after all, he was carring TWO guns.
@Raoul.N.Stone. I guess the laws of physics don't apply in this case then. The Medical Examiner stated under oath that a number of the rounds that entered in the back, were traveling in an upward direction from the point of entry, most notably the round that entered the buttocks and travel up and forward to lodge in the bladder. If a person is standing, that trajectory is impossible. So, either the Medical Examiner is lying about the trajectories or your "witnesses" are mistaken. @Cynthia. Funny, I sat in the courtroom on Sat, and don't remember any testimony to that effect. The only problem with saying the witness is coached by Goodman is that Goodman had no information as to what evidence was going to be presented and who was going to be a witness.
Only in the United States can the family of a prescription drug addict who was acting irratically and foolishly, sue METRO for wrongful death when he (Eric Scott) committed suicide by cop. I guess the Scott family would be happy if Eric had lived after killing multiple employees of Costco, bystanders and officers. I'm sure some how these opportunists would have found a way to say Eric wasn't at fault under those circumstances as well. Hope they loose and hope they have to pay all civil defendant costs.