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Le Socialiste
30th May 2013, 06:35
Such bullshit. ACAB.


A woman handing out pizza samples at a Virginia Costco was shot and killed by sheriff's deputies Wednesday afternoon after she began acting strangely and came at the officers with a scissors and a knife, authorities said. A sheriff's deputy also was wounded in the leg, possibly by a ricochet. He is expected to recover. The melee began at about 3 p.m., when store employees noticed the woman acting oddly at the Costco in Sterling, Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman said.

The woman has been identified as 38-year-old Mhai Scott of Sterling.

Witnesses said she seemed upset about the pizza she was handing out and was waving a knife and scissors, threatening employees. Deputies were called to the store to handle the disturbance. After they arrived, the woman — who works for a company that does sampling at Costco stores — came at the officers with a knife and scissors.

One officer tried to use a stun gun on Scott, but Chapman said the stun gun "did not work" and one of the deputies fatally shot her. Chapman said the only shots fired were by one of the deputies.

Nora Lateef said she was at the food court when she saw three deputies rush into the store and head toward the employee lounge, asking, "Where is Linda?" Soon, Lateef said, she heard five shots and the store was evacuated. They were saying "everybody out of the store! Out of the store!" Lateef said.

Shopper Elizabeth Avelar told News4 she believes she had contact with Scott prior to the shooting.

"The woman was very nice, very polite," Avelar said.

Avelar was later herded out of the store following the incident.

"I had no idea whether somebody was being shot, if there was a bomb threat," Avelar said. "It was very difficult to get out of the parking lot — people were honking their horns. It was frightening."

The Costco Warehouse Store is located at 21398 Price Cascades Plaza in Loudoun County, Va. Chapman said Scott was an employee of Club Demonstration Services, Inc., a Costco subcontractor.

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Deputy-Shot-at-Costco-in-Sterling-209389621.html

Leftsolidarity
30th May 2013, 07:58
This all sounds very bizarre. Was she mentally ill?

Le Socialiste
30th May 2013, 09:27
It's not very clear from the article, but the comments below it are surprisingly upset/furious over the police's actions. Many seem to be speculating that she had serious low blood sugar issues or diabetes - which apparently can impact one's mental state if allowed to go unattended. But that's just the prevailing opinion in the comments, I don't know what happened to cause her to 'act strangely'. Sad either way...

Per Levy
30th May 2013, 09:59
ah ja, the police your friend and helper, as a german saying goes.

GerrardWinstanley
30th May 2013, 11:25
It's hard to believe anybody believes the account of police officers these days.

Dear Leader
30th May 2013, 11:52
It's hard to believe anybody believes the account of police officers these days.
You'd be surprised at the number of people who will say "We don't know the full story, that person MUST have done something to warrant the action".

Jimmie Higgins
30th May 2013, 13:08
There was a police-killing at another Costco a few years ago:

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/witnesses-recall-gun-police-shooting-costco

The cops were called because he was "damaging merchandise" (a witness said he was basically opening a package to see if he could get the products to fit in his bag)and it seems a good guess from the infromation in this article above that he was shot because he unfortunately tried to hand over his gun to the cops and they shot him while he was reaching for it.

Jimmie Higgins
30th May 2013, 13:12
You'd be surprised at the number of people who will say "We don't know the full story, that person MUST have done something to warrant the action".It's a lot easier to believe that there are just tons of exceptional circumstances than to come to the conclusion that the whole system is rotten. That and tons of PR that the police do from ideological support by national and local politicians, romanticization in the media, police and "tough on crime" lobbying and political groups, more informal personal connections to law enforcement (which is a lot of people when you consider the amount of people who make their living from the police and prison systems and all their immediate families)... and of course the racist myths used to apologize and justify heavy-handed police no matter what.

Leftsolidarity
30th May 2013, 18:25
It's a lot easier to believe that there are just tons of exceptional circumstances than to come to the conclusion that the whole system is rotten. That and tons of PR that the police do from ideological support by national and local politicians, romanticization in the media, police and "tough on crime" lobbying and political groups, more informal personal connections to law enforcement (which is a lot of people when you consider the amount of people who make their living from the police and prison systems and all their immediate families)... and of course the racist myths used to apologize and justify heavy-handed police no matter what.

My father and I got into this when he picked me up a few days ago. I was wearing a "Justice 4 Alan Blueford" shirt so I explained what had happened but he just goes "well they must have had a reason because the police don't just do that". Then I brought up dozens of other cases and he said for every damn one that the police make sure people don't get hurt because that's the law (:laugh:) and they would get in trouble. Then I even brought up Derek Williams from Milwaukee in which they just announced that they won't charge the police for anything and Rodney King. Once again, well the police had to have done what they did for a reason and if they did anything wrong they would be in trouble.

The willful ignorance of some people is incredible.

Jimmie Higgins
30th May 2013, 19:29
You have an Alan blueford shirt? :). Cool! For a long time people in Oakland hardly knew about him. Yeah I know you're a radical and all but still it's cool.

Leftsolidarity
30th May 2013, 19:53
You have an Alan blueford shirt? :). Cool! For a long time people in Oakland hardly knew about him. Yeah I know you're a radical and all but still it's cool.

Yep, I was actually just given it in NYC last weekend by a party member. We've done some stuff around him and written about the case. We're also close with Reverend Witherspoon, if you got to see him went he went out to Oakland to speak.

Vanilla
30th May 2013, 19:55
This sort of reminds me of a story I read the other week where a guy was holding a woman hostage and he had a gun pressed to her head, threatening to shoot. The cops decided to shoot the guy, which is in my opinion is okay given the extreme circumstances, but they shot at him 7 times. He died, but one of the shots hit the woman and she also was killed. I know it was just an accident but maybe if they just tried to shoot the man once instead of several times...