‘License To Kill: The Murder Of Erik Scott’
An unbelievably horrifying story and one you probably haven’t heard
Erik Scott’s murder and subsequent cover-up are an unbelievably horrifying story and one you probably haven’t heard. Scott was murdered in a Costco parking lot by Las Vegas Metro cops. Scott’s senseless murder and surrounding events are blood boiling. It’s an unfortunate example of government corruption, of the perversion of the justice system that has afflicted far too many locals, and of bureaucrats who will do whatever is necessary to cover and conceal the deplorable acts of their employees.
Thankfully, Legal Insurrection reader Mike McDaniel picked up the story and followed it in earnest. McDaniel is a former police officer who served as a patrolman, crime scene photographer, detective, shift supervisor, division commander, SWAT officer, field training officer and firearm instructor. He is an Air Force veteran, having helped fight the Cold War, and a European and Japanese fencer. He’s written and published a book called License To Kill: The Murder Of Erik Scott which discusses Scott’s case in great detail. His book can be purchased here.
A synopsis
Before we get to the interview, this video, which is a snippet from the documentary “What Happened in Vegas,” outlines the basics of the story:
We spoke with Mike McDaniel
We had the privilege of speaking with Mike about his research and investigative work on Scott’s story.
LI: How did you learn about this story?
MM: I learned about the story by reading a brief article by my friend Bob Owens on the now-defunct Confederate Yankee blog. Bob invited me to follow up on his article, and after the response to my follow up, invited me to be his co-blogger. That was the beginning of my blogging journey.
LI: What compelled you to dig deeper?
MM: Knowing nothing but what was in Bob’s short article, everything about the case sounded wrong. The normal, essential things any law enforcement agency should have done went undone, and the things no competent, honest law enforcement agency would do, they did. Erik Scott’s background also stood out; this was not the sort of person who has contact with the police, and surely not the kind of person police officers legitimately shoot. Because of my police background in honest agencies, I initially tended to give Metro the benefit of the doubt. As I investigated, I soon realized they didn’t deserve it–quite the opposite.
LI: What shocked or frightened you most about what you found?
MM: What appalled me most was the extent of the cover-up and the arrogance of everyone involved. The cover-up extended to every department of Metro, the Public Administrator’s office, the prosecutors, the police union, and more, and those that wouldn’t play along were threatened. Most of the local media played along. Even though the Review-Journal did an extensive series of articles proving Metro routinely killed innocent people and was absolutely not to be trusted, they bought and repeated the Erik Scott Metro narrative without question. I contacted them multiple times over the years with leads and offers of help, but they never responded.
LI: You mentioned there’s been a fair amount of intimidation as a result of covering this story, can you tell us a little bit about that?
MM: I have not been indirectly or directly attacked over this story, but many Las Vegas residents who dared to place magnetic signs on their cars memorializing Erik Scott were followed, stopped, ticketed and threatened by Metro and Henderson cops. The Scott family, fearing for their supporter’s safety, soon had to urge everyone to remove the signs. Samantha Sterner, Erik’s fiance who witnessed his killing, was stopped and harassed, without cause, three times within days. Bill Scott, Erik father, who was also pursuing the case on the Internet experienced a denial of service attack. Using his many contacts, he was able to determine it was a sophisticated attack requiring government-level software. Metro has that sort of resource and is known for using it against anyone that displeases them. I suspect their current plan is to try to ignore the book. I recently contacted the Review-Journal, as have others, with offers of a free copy of the book. They have not responded.
LI: Anything else you’d like to add?
MM: This is an important story because every honest police officer knows they must have the respect of the public. They, and our system, survive only because most people are willing to obey the law most of the time. If we can’t trust our police, we’re on the road to anarchy. Fortunately, most American agencies are honest, as are most police officers. Honest Metro officers have told me as much as 3/4 of the force is incompetent and corrupt.
How to buy the book
This is an incredibly important story that deserves to be doused in sunlight disinfectant. To purchase your copy of McDaniel’s book, click here. To read more on his blog, see here.
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Comments
Gave me chills.
Add this on top of Mueller’s Merry Band, as Jonathan Turley put it ” put him (Flynn) in a cage and shot him. It was a canned hunt.”
On top of McCabe performance as Deputy Director, and Comey’s boasting on TV that he took advantage of the first couple of days of the Trump administration moving into the White House to avoid the SOP of informing the White House Counsel’s office of the “visit” by the Bureau. In fact Comey admitted on national TV he likely would not have “gotten away” with that move with the Bush and Obama White House because there were more DC professionals in those administrations.
All this is going to cause people to ignore the law and, if it continues, cause them to decide they can’t get justice from the system and take it upon themselves to get their justice by any means necessary. That’s anarchy.
A well written and sourced book which proves Metro PD guilt well beyond a reasonable doubt. A real page turner very much worth your time and money.
Wow, this is the first I’ve ever heard of this and I consider myself an avid consumer of news / information.
If the LVPD is this corrupt, maybe it helps explain the inexplicable… how are we more than a year past the mass shooting in LV and we have ZERO real information about what happened… in a city that is completely blanketed by video surveillance. WTF?
And once again I’ll observe… shit like this happens and they wonder why we cling to our guns?
“If the LVPD is this corrupt…”
They are. And they are minor league compared to the feds.
Just bought the book. We’ll see.
I just downloaded the book and will read it later, but I had the good fortune to be reading Mike’s coverage from the beginning of this case. The events of this case are sure to shake your faith in the LE community. Mike is a passionate writer who none the less presents facts clearly and objectively; any professional speculation is clearly labeled as such.
His writing on the Jose Guerena case is just as good and the police response in that event is easily as sloppy as the Erik Scott killing.
Here are the undisputed facts of the Erik Scott shooting.
Scott, apparently intoxicated or impaired for some reason, is bending over removing merchandise from its packaging in Costco. While bent over, his legally carried concealed pistol is exposed. A customer notifies the manager who finds Scott and interacts with him. The manager then calls the LV Metro and reports Scott is creating a disturbance and that he is armed. Responding LV Metro officers confront Scott as he is leaving the main entrance of the store, with pistols drawn. During the interaction, Scott drew his holstered pistol and began to hold it out, pointing generally in the direction of the LV Metro officers. The officers then shot him.
The only real point of controversy was whether the officers told Scott to remove the pistol from his waistband or if that was wholly his decision.
What happened next is that Scott’s family embarked upon a heavy public relations campaign to convince the public that the officers had intentionally or negligently killed Scott. They filed a wrongful death lawsuit and then withdrew it.
What this case was all about was a man who behaved badly and recklessly while armed and a LEA which behaved in a paranoid manner following a police involved shooting. It is a cautionary tale for both weapon carriers and LE. But, it was NOT murder.
Your Blue Hem Line is showing …
Every single one of those ‘facts’ are in dispute and Mike goes through each and every one of them.
Edwards’s assessment about losing trust in LE is correct; remember, if the law won’t protect us from you, it won’t protect you from us.
Sorry, but you are incorrect.
Every “fact” which I mentioned is accurate. Every single one. There is no evidence that any one is false. Not every police involved shooting is a good shooting. Police make mistakes, just like everyone else. And, some officers do actually murder suspects and subjects. But, that is not what happened in this case.
Witnesses and physical evidence, inside the store, attest to the claim that Scott was tearing open items and removing the contents of the packaging. Scott did get into an argument with store employees, including the manager and refused to leave the store. When confronted by police, witnesses said they saw Scott remove a handgun from his waistband and turn with it pointing in the direction of the officers. As to those witnesses who said they did not see Scott draw a handgun from his waistband, it is always easier to fail to see something than it is to actually see it as it occurs. All of the investigations supported the version of events as presented to the coroner.
What happened with the Scott incident is that a person who was on drugs was carrying a firearm, engaged in behavior inside a store which resulted in orders to leave the premises. He then refused to leave and the police were called too remove him. When confronted by the police, Scott made a movement which was logically interpreted to be threatening to the officers and they responded with deadly force. Scott’s family did not like the outcome and sought to blame the result on anyone other than Scott. They embarked upon a ludicrous PR campaign aimed at blaming LV Metro and Costco. LV Metro, whiich had been the target of local media for several years, responded in an understandably paranoid manner, which aggravated the situation. LV Metro has more than its share of corruption, but, that was not the case here. This book is nothing more than a rehashing of the Scott family talking points and needs to be viewed as such.
Thanks for the summary.
Without it, this page is just a big advertisement for Amazon and YouTube.
First, the Costco ‘security guard’ should be charged with manslaughter.
Second, the corrupt cops should get the hillary clinton punishment.
At about six minutes, the speaker mentions the huge liability for Costco if this wasn’t covered up.
Of course it was covered-up. Look who’s involved:
Why Democrats Love Costco:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/06/jim-sinegal-costco-dnc_n_1861203.html
Costco’s been in the Democratic camp for a long, long time.
Bill Clinton’s “My Life” was stocked so lavishly that it was falling off the Costco book shelves. The contemporary books by Ollie North and Bill O’Reilly were nowhere to be found.
Let’s not forget hillary klinton’s pathetic costco book signing.
Hillary Clinton Signs Books Next To Milk At Connecticut Costco:
https://thepoliticalinsider.com/hillary-clinton-costco/
The fact that the video is missing is good enough for me…
“All these marijuana arrests do is make people hate us.” Chief of Police, Washington, D.C.
Quite expectedly, the video at the link ignores or downplays facts which might question this anti-police narrative. The article here sounds nothing like what the local press had to say. For instance, some independent witnesses on the scene saw Scott pull his gun. The Post Morten exam did in fact find high quantities of morphine and Xanax. Scott was behaving oddly inside the store, which is why security people were watching him in the first place, when they noticed the firearm (one of two guns Scott was carrying while shopping, not frequenting bad neighbors as alleged by the video). The store security asked Scott to leave but he refused and argued with unarmed store security. If Scott was so rational and under control, why not just go put those 2 firearms in your car? And if police officers confront you with guns drawn, why not just do exactly what they say instead of pulling your gun?
Perhaps most tellingly, the Scott family dropped their lawsuit against the police, because they had no evidence that police did not act correctly. If what the video says is true, such a lawsuit would have been a slam-dunk, especially in the liberal 9th Circuit.
The book’s author, who of course has a vested interest in book sales but has exactly zero first hand knowledge, alleges that the police department, the county management, the store chain, the press,, the Medical Examiner, everyone is involved in a gigantic conspiracy to hide the truth, when the family cannot even make a borderline case in court that anything said by any of those entities is incorrect. What are the chances that such a huge conspiracy, including even the local press, could exist without a single person inside leaking?
Get real. And Legal insurrection should be embarrassed to print such tripe, based on a for-profit enterprise which stands to gain from wild conspiracy theories.