When is it Justifiable to use Force?

On May 29th at approximately 3pm the Loudoun County Sheriff’s office were called to the Costco on suspicion of a woman wielding a knife and behaving erratically. Shortly after 3:27pm Mhai Scott, 38, lay dead with four - 40 caliber bullets shot from almost point blank range by a Loudoun County Sheriff.

Recently, Virginia’s Commonwealth Attorney published a full report of the incident and concluded that the Sheriff in question acted appropriately in the shooting death of Mhai Scott. So, what happened exactly? Here is the timeline directly from the Commonwealth Attorney’s report:

·      “Approximately 3:00pm” Loudoun Sheriff response to 911 call from employee at Costco.

·      Five Sheriff deputies block Ms. Scott in an aisle (three on end and two others on the other end)

·      Ms. Scott was observed holding an 8” knife in on hand and a pair of scissors in the other hand.

·      Ms. Scott was ordered to put down the knife and scissors repeatedly by the deputies. She “did not react or respond” to the commands (note that she never verbally threatened herself or the deputies she simply didn’t respond).

·      TASER was fired at 3:27 pm according to the TASER guns time stamp. The TASER hit Ms. Scott. There is reason to believe that the gun misfired and only discharged a one second burst instead of the typical five second burst.

·      According to the report Ms. Scott turned towards the officers and “charged” them after being shot by the TASER. At that point one of the five deputies on the scene fired five 40 caliber rounds at Ms. Scott striking her four times and striking his fellow officer once in the leg

What do we know about Ms. Scott from the report?

            Ms. Scott had a history of mental illness including a police report dating back to February 2012 when she was hospitalized for a mental episode. She had been transferred from the Leesburg Costco to the Sterling Costco recently. The report did not provide any background as to why she was transferred. Employees on the scene and interviewed by the Commonwealth all confirmed that Ms. Scott was behaving erratically. What the witnesses and employees on the seen didn’t say was that they felt their lives were in danger or that any customers were in danger.

Commonwealth’s Attorney’s conclusion?   

“Ms. Scott’s immediate history, while relevant, is not a factor that is directly related to the legal analysis”.  In other words, the shooting death of Ms. Scott was justifiable.    

When I posted my reaction to this report on my Facebook page my very good friend (and Attorney) had a rather different prospective about the merits of the investigation and the end result of the shooting. Regardless, of where you stand on the use of force I think most of us can agree that mental illness played a much larger role in Ms. Scott’s death than the Commonwealth’s Attorney would suggest, in that he assures that it was “not a factor”. Furthermore, I believe the report itself didn’t answer the more pressing questions of force.

·      When is it justified to shoot to kill?

·      What about other non-lethal methods like pepper spray or other TASERS (the report stated that other offices had TASERS)?

·      How much training is our police force given to identify and deescalate individuals with clear mental illness. In this case, Ms. Scott was isolated in an area where she could not harm anyone and was clearly “unresponsive” to police demands.

·      Why the rush to use force? It was reported that the Sherriff’s reported to the scene at “approximately 3pm” and the TASER was shot at 3:27 pm. However, Attachment 12 of the report shows the Sherriff’s running down the aisle at 3:05pm. This would mean that the time from the Sherriff’s first contact with  Ms. Scott to her ultimate death was approximately 22 minutes. Is this enough time to understand all the facts of the situation before using deadly force? Especially given that this was not a hostage situation, and that Ms. Scott did not threaten to harm anyone?

What do you think? Should the officers have done a better job of deescalating the situation? What kind of training are our law enforcement personnel given to deal with mental illness?

It’s very difficult to read the Commonwealth’s report without thinking that the conclusion was baked into the report since so many hard questions where not answered. There are many citizens in our community that struggle with different degrees of mental illness. A co-worker once told me that his biggest fear for his adult African American son was being misunderstood because of his Autism and getting hurt. He told me a heart felt story of how he hugs his 6’2” son whenever he has an episode in public. I’ve personally worked at a homeless shelter and have seen mental illness in adults. It’s scary; it’s confusing but with the right training situations like what happened in Costco on May 29th need not happen.

Justifiable death, no. Uneducated, unfortunate death, yes.