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LV officer at Costco recorded in 911 call
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A 911 call made by a Summerlin Costco employee captures police shouting orders to 39-year-old Erik Scott before the U.S. Military Academy graduate was shot and killed, according to Las Vegas police.
Capt. Patrick Neville said an employee was talking to dispatchers and was close enough to the scene on Saturday that a recording of the conversation caught an officer clearly yelling, "Get on the ground."
Police have refused to release the recording. Investigators hope to review store surveillance video, but Neville said he didn't know whether any video of the shooting existed.
The Saturday shooting at the store near Charleston Boulevard and the Las Vegas Beltway took place after employees ordered an evacuation. As customers streamed out of the store, officers waited with their guns drawn for Scott to exit. Police said that when three officers confronted him, Scott refused orders and instead withdrew a handgun and pointed it at them.
Dozens of people witnessed the event, and many disagree on whether Scott pulled a gun and aimed it at officers, as police have alleged. The Review-Journal has interviewed six witnesses. Two claim to have seen Scott pull out a gun, and one of the two said it was in a holster.
Investigators have interviewed more than 40 witnesses, including more than a dozen who said they saw Scott with the gun in his hand and out of his waistband, Neville said.
Witnesses have also disagreed on what they heard police order Scott to do. Some heard, "Get on the ground," while others heard "Drop it," or "Get down."
Such wide discrepancies in witness reports are not unusual, experts say. They also arise in officer-involved shootings in Southern Nevada. Numerous witnesses in the controversial 2008 shooting of ice cream truck driver Deshira Selimaj by a Henderson police officer reported that the woman did not have a knife. Police said the woman was wielding a knife, prompting officer Luke Morrison to fatally shoot her. The knife recovered from Selimaj was used as evidence in a Clark County's coroner's inquest on the shooting.
Paul Michel, an optometrist, former police officer and expert on eyewitness accounts, said eyewitnesses are "notoriously unreliable."
"Unless someone happens to be staring right at a gun in somebody's hand, it would be difficult to impossible to differentiate it from a cell phone or a camera or an empty hand," said Michel, who is based in Denver.
He said people are too trusting of their peripheral vision.
"The frailties of our vision are not perceived by us," Michel said.
He suggested people try a simple test: focus on a picture on a wall from about eight feet away; then divert your eyes about five feet away from the picture and try to use your peripheral vision to make out what is in the picture. People have difficulty making out any detail in the picture, he said.
Police officers also have the same problem, Michel said. Officers are trained to look for threats, and in particular, a suspect's hands. And when an officer focuses on a threat, such as a weapon in someone's hands, they tend to lose all perception of anything around them, including other bystanders.
Roy Malpass, a professor of psychology who runs the Eyewitness Identification Research Laboratory at the University of Texas, El Paso, said memory can also be influenced by the moments immediately after a traumatic event. A person shouting, "He didn't have a gun" seconds after the incident could subconsciously affect how another witness remembers the event.
"If you get to people and ask them not very long after an event like that, you'll find that things will creep into their memory that aren't memories," Malpass said.
He added that evidence shows that officers are usually better witnesses at crime scenes because they're trained to know what to look for, similar to how lifeguards are trained to look for signs of someone drowning. But Malpass said that when the officers themselves are involved in the traumatic event, they are shown to be no more reliable than anyone else.
Neville on Monday also addressed the incident which prompted Costco to call police. He said the incident started when a customer reported seeing Scott opening boxes and removing water bottles, putting some in his cart and some on the floor.
During a heated discussion with Scott, a security worker confronting him over the opened boxes noticed Scott's gun in his waistband, Neville said.
Some time passed before a Costco employee called police to report a man with a gun who was acting erratically in the store, he said.
"He was doing something out of the norm," he said.
A witness the Review-Journal spoke to on Monday said he observed Scott opening the package in the aisle. He described Scott's voice while discussing the situation with a Costco employee as "elevated."
A corporate spokesman for Costco has not returned repeated requests for comment.
Contact reporter Lawrence Mower at lmower@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0440. Contact reporter Brian Haynes at bhaynes@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0281.
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Comments in the news how unreliable eyewitnesses (unless they're cops I guess) are, and now something wrong with the footage, totally couldn't see that coming. The plot thickens. Justified shooting, no doubt. Google "Las Vegas Police Settlement" to see how much we spent on trigger happy cops' mistakes.
@Bill.Adams-
Ah yes, the blind justice of the inquest... one must simply have faith. Now THERE'S a good "German"...
I love how you accuse others of jumping to conclusions- sure, many are, but many more are justifiably acting as suspicious as the police would if you gave THEM a story like this, but I digress... I love your accusation of others jumping to conclusions followed by these gems:
"I doubt ANY Metro officer will see any of these comments..."; "Behold, the 179 unemployed people with nothing to do but bash cops is here!" Simply priceless! Okay, enough fun for tonight, my buddy in SWAT has to leave on a call out, and I have to be at work by 7:30 tomorrow morning.
And now Metro PD reports they have the Costco tapes in hand, but they're having "technical difficulties" and say they can't view them.
I suspect most people want one thing from the police: to do the job their being paid to do and follow the law. That's all.
Police can't ignore all of their taxpayer funded training, use excessive force to kill an innocent civilian and say "oh, well we've just got a stressful job, you don't understand, the manslaughter laws don't apply to us".
If a doctor mistakenly cuts the wrong leg off a person, he can't say "oh well, I've got a stressful job" and move on without repercussions.
If a soldier breaks the rules of engagement and kills a civilian in a combat zone, he can't say "oh well, I've got a stressful job" and move on without repercussions.
And once a mistake is made, the public expects the police to acknowledge their errors and fix them. Not to break the law again by covering it up.
Many of the most vocal critics of Metro PD response in this case are those with professional law enforcement and military experience. Metro PD is treading dangerously close to losing widespread support among the public it is sworn to protect. And nobody wins in that case.
Some of those most critical of Metro PD's response are individuals that have professional military and law enforcement experience themselves.
Mr. Adams . . . the public has not been quick to judge METRO, as you would say, the public has been tolerating an out of control police department for more than forty years . . . from the days of Sheriff Ralph Lamb to present. The only difference is the people are now finally becoming intolerant. You will need to wait roughly 24 hours to read my more complete previous post . . . as the web filter has struck again.
Mr. Adams . . . the point is that these apparently needless deaths appear to be the result of very aggressive police tactics were the LEO is trained kill under circumstances that are simply not acceptable to the common citizen. These incidents raise the specter of whether a small minority of police officers do not know where to draw a moral and ethical line with regards to when deadly force is to be used. Put another way, giving a LEO the authority to kill, need not and should not become an obligation to kill. Quite frankly, with the number of police related deaths of innocents appear to be more common each and every day, it is looking like the police use of force tactics are becoming a LEO exclusive blood sport where by the LEO is shielded from any fear of prosecution. It is the common belief that in general the police routinely lie, with regards to these incidents in order to protect their own. The common citizen is no longer whispering the word murder under their collective breaths; they are beginning to scream the word murder. If this is the common perception of what the police department has become, then changes must be made to the tactics used at the police department, and those changes should be made now. I also personally demand that a thorough and independent investigation be made of the 150 plus killing, by the METRO police department over the past three decades. It will be the only way to exonerate the METRO police department of any wrong doing, and lacking that step, will only cement the thought that METRO is corrupt, lying gang of thugs.
mr. adams - and when the video shows it was cold blooded murder what will you do??? will you still believe it was justified or will you join the protest and demand justice???
Remember when the 15 year old was shot in the head by Metro? All of you were very quick to judge Metro. Then the coroners inquest came around. Low and behold, at that point and only at that point, did Metro show a video which showed exactly why they had to kill that kid. And then everyone understood and you all had to eat your words. How about this time instead of making a fool out of yourselves, you wait until the inquest?
Overall, I think some of these comments are a little out of control. How come none of these comments come out when a gang shooting happens, like the one at CVS today, or a robbery?
What would make you all happy? Would you like for the Metro to start a policy requiring officers to wait until they are hit with a bullet before they can engage a bad guy?
Okay, so there are 179 comments on this article. A lot of them are by the same people. 179 comments out of 2,000,000 residents in Las Vegas. Pretty lame. I doubt ANY Metro officer will see any of these comments so what is the point? Does it make you feel better in your little world to talk down about the men and women who do an outstanding job keeping us safe?
Behold, the 179 unemployed people with nothing to do but bash cops is here! Lets party.
All 179 of you can start your own tea party and march down to police HQ and present your idea.
Or you can wait for ALL the facts to come out and then make your decision.
The message is, don't do "something out of the norm" and raise your voice as that is grounds for execution by Metro.