Erik Scott
July 10, 2014, the fourth anniversary of the murder of West Point graduate Erik Scott by three panicky Las Vegas Metro police officers at the Summerlin Costco. For those that loved Scott, it’s an inexpressibly sad day. It’s also a sad day for those that love justice.
For those that are not familiar with the case, the Erik Scott archive may be found here. May I also suggest these articles to get a brief overview:
Update 19: Implausibility and Laziness
I haven’t posted a new update for some time, but I’ll remedy this failing soon with the story of a Las Vegas Scott supporter recently hit and injured by a hit and run driver. Being a perceived enemy of Metro in Las Vegas is dangerous indeed.
Say a prayer for the Scott family, and keep the faith. This story is not over, nor is the quest for justice.
Stately McDaniel Manor 
I posted a link to this on my blog. Thanks for keeping up with this, and the reminder!
gfa
Mike;
I follow your blog and in general find it to be well written and thorough. I read the more recent case updates, and it certainly sounds like Scott was inappropriately shot by the Las Vegas police. I do have a question, however.
In update 19, you state that
“As I’ve written in previous updates, Erik Scott was not under the influence of drugs and was not behaving erratically in the Costco on July 10, 2010.”
At the coroner’s inquest, however, there was testimony from (I believe) the M.E. that he had very high, possibly lethal, levels of opioids in his system. If the toxicology report is true, he was certainly under the influence of drugs, and this absolutely refutes your claim that he was not.
Apologies if this has been explained previously…I haven’t had time to look through all 20+ updates on the case.
Keep up the good work.
Dear libtardh8r:
Thanks, and good questions. Scott suffered from back damage gained in the military and aggravated by a car accident in the civilian world. In addition, he had a very high tolerance to drugs of all kinds. In other words, if 20 milligrams of a given medication would work very well for most people, Scott would need many times that amount.
He did indeed have high levels of painkillers in his system, all prescribed by his doctor. At the inquest, the prosecution put on two past doctors and his current doctor to try to portray him as a crazed, drugged-out madman. While they expressed concern about Scott, none were willing to go along with the prosecution. His current physician even expressed great admiration for Scott as he struggled to maintain an extraordinarily high level of physical fitness and as he functioned normally in his technologically-oriented profession despite intractable pain.
In brief, did Scott have drugs in his system? Yes; prescription drugs. Was he under the influence in the common understanding of that term? No. He was used to those levels of medication and was functioning normally.
Keep in mind that Metro Inquests were nothing more than cynical rubber stamps for Metro. Also keep in mind that from the moment Metro officer Mosher began yelling contradictory commands at Scott until he shot him twice, only two seconds elapsed. Even if Scott were impaired, he would have had no time to do anything before he was killed. In fact, if he were impaired, Mosher’s claim that Scott drew and pointed a holstered handgun at him in less than two seconds and while Mosher was shouting conflicting commands is even more nonsensical.
Thanks again.
Thanks, Mike. You’re absolutely correct. I can add that Erik had 40% of his L5 lumbar vertebra broken off, thanks to an injury sustained, during Army airborne (jump) training. Because he was so physically fit, strong muscles in his back kept the spine aligned, precluding much pain–until a woman swerved into his lane and hit Erik’s car. Evidently, that side impact altered Erik’s spine’s geometry and initiated debilitating back pain that required either medication or back surgery.
Erik was taking the precise dosage of pain medication prescribed by his pain-management doctor. He was NOT “under the influence,” and was NOT acting “erratic” in Costco. Both claims were lies concocted by a sleazy undercover security weasel, Shai Lierley, who (illegally) decided to exercise his smidgen of power by calling the cops.
In fact, the same medication Erik was taking is routinely used (in similar dosages) by airline pilots, physicians, courtroom lawyers….and cops. It does NOT impair people, unless grossly abused. Just before he was murdered, Erik told me he was down to only three pills per day, and was determined to be completely off the medication by the end of 2010.
Mike;
Thanks for taking the time to answer my question. You are correct that at the inquest Scott was portrayed as being a drug seeking narcotic abuser. It was implied that he was sending his girlfriend to the doctor to obtain pain meds and was then taking them himself. It was not made clear in the reports from the inquest that I read that he was seeing a pain management specialist and had levels of narcotics in his system consistent with his supervised regimen. If he had been on the narcotics for many years, then he certainly would have developed a tolerance for opioids, and levels of narcotics that would seriously impair or even render unconscious narcotic naive people would leave him unimpaired.
I have no doubt that the shooting was not justified, but when I read the news reports about the inquest after reading that he was “not under the influence of drugs”, I didn’t know how to reconcile those two reports. It might be wise to make mention of the fact that Scott was on a medically supervised narcotic regimen so as to preempt any notion on the part of readers that you are glossing over something that is contrary to your argument. I am pretty anal retentive about language, but Scott was, to my own way of thinking, “under the influence”, as he was on narcotics, and they were treating his pain, but not “intoxicated”, meaning that his cognitive abilities, insight and judgment were intact.
Mike, thanks again for your blog. It is a breath of fresh air amongst the miasma which is the MSM.
Dear libtardh8r:
Thanks for your kind comment. You raise an interesting question: what does “under the influence of drugs” mean?
Obviously anyone taking drugs is, to at least some degree, under the influence of those drugs. That’s the point of taking them. Until I was 59, I took no drugs, except for the occasional antibiotics necessary to deal with recurrent sinus infections. Then I had a stroke and suddenly, I’m taking three meds pretty much necessary to keep me alive.
As a police officer, I had no trouble with this issue. People taking prescription drugs, as long as they didn’t actually affect their daily functionality, were not under the influence. People who used drugs–and alcohol–recreationally, and who did so to excess, were under the influence. That understanding was reflective of legislative language, which does not, generally, treat those taking medications under the care of a physician, as under the influence or intoxicated.
Interesting point.
I know this is an old thread, but I feel the need to comment. I live in Las Vegas and was actually at a friend’s house close to the Summerlin Costco the day Erik was shot. There were helicopters buzzing overhead, and the next day we learned why. I followed the story locally and watched quite a bit of the “inquest” on TV. My impression almost from the start was that trigger-happy Metro cops executed Scott, and the inquest, plus other information I researched on the internet essentially confirmed my suspicions. So that’s my background with regard to this case … but the point I want to make has to do with the painkillers Erik took. If I recall correctly, according to his dad, Erik had a (perhaps genetic?) condition that resulted in his need for exceptionally high doses of drugs/painkillers to achieve the same benefit other people receive at much lower doses. I think this is relevant to the discussion of Erik’s use of narcotics for pain, because if true (and I have no reason to doubt his dad), it also goes a long way in explaining why there were such high levels in his system at the time of his murder.
Dear Janc1955:
Even the handpicked physicians the prosecutors used at the inquest to try to slander Erik Scott were not willing to support the Metro narrative. In fact, when the physician who most recently treated him testified, he spoke of his great admiration for Scott, and did his best to explain what you’ve explained here. For that, the prosecution did their best to savage him, as they did with any witness that dared to tell the truth and sway from the Metro narrative.
I’ll have more to say on this in the not too distant future.
Thanks for your comment!
From personal experience, and observation of others, I would say that anyone who claims that all people react the same to a drug is incompetent, or a fool. I’m one of those people who has a high tolerance to pain medications, among other types of drugs. It may have a genetic basis, but it wasn’t inherited, as neither parent had this problem.
Those who claim that it is due to long term use of the pain drugs are also wrong, as far as I can tell. That may be due to the high levels of drugs it takes to have a beneficial effect, but I have never had to ramp up a drug dosage, even after months of use. The same dosage I determined to work early on, was the same level in use several months later. If needed a year or so later, same dosage.
One Percodan tablet would put my father out like a light for 12 hours (kidney stones), I could munch on them like candy. Freaked my doctor out. Got Demerol injections in the hospital, the max they were allowed to give anyone, no matter how big they were (I was 115 lbs @age 21). 4 hr minimum was mandated between shots. The useful effect lasted 2hrs, at most. They had a hard time with the anesthesia for the operations (not fun – I kept waking up!). That week was agonizing.
If a prescription pain med worked, it seemed to require about 4x the normal dosage, at the minimum time intervals specified. A couple decades later, I found that I didn’t require quite as high a dosage level with pain meds, maybe 2x-3x, instead of 4x as much. My dentist has to resort to a seldom used injectable, and more than normal amounts. Actually requires two different agents prior to the main injection to get the job done.
Oddly enough, at that young age I seemed to have a similar non-reaction to alcohol. It would take about a dozen shots of tequila to give me a buzz. That gets expensive in a bar! I finally decided that I didn’t care for the effect, and quit drinking. I’ve only met one other person who claimed to have a similar non-effect to booze.
Dear Will:
Quite so, and thanks for the comment. In the Scott case, telling the truth and being forensically accurate were very much not the point for the authorities.