Good Lord. Woman Handing Out Samples at Va. Costco Shot Dead by Police After Acting Strangely

[cali]

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 weapon, 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. Witnesses said she seemed upset about the pizza she was handing out.

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 weapon, which some witnesses said was a knife.

One officer tried to use a stun gun on the woman, but Chapman said the stun gun "did not work" and one of the deputies shot the woman fatally.

<snip>

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

[RobertEarl]

1. Moral of story

Put your hands up and drop whatever you are holding when a cop approaches you. The cops like that, and you are pretty certain to not get shot.

[0rganism]

5. too bad crazy people might have a hard time remembering that

The world's a dangerous place when you go bonkers in public. I wonder what the unfortunate woman had in her bloodstream that day.

[Matariki]

50. Or someone having an insulin attack

or a bad reaction to medications. The police really need better training than they are obviously getting.

[dballance]

54. Your compassion for another human who is now dead is touching.

You should be ashamed of yourself. Most decent people stopped calling the mentally ill "crazy people" a while back. Especially when referencing a story in which a person was killed. There is nothing in the linked article that says the woman was mentally ill.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

7. Or she might have been havinfg a nervous breakdown or any number of other problems.

Nothing that a quick round won't cure. Right?

[hatrack]

13. Maybe she was diabetic, or had psychomotor epilepsy, or untreated mental illness . . .

Maybe she was off her meds, or on them.

[Honeycombe8]

25. Maybe. But what we DO know is that she had a knife & scissors & threatened Costco employees

with them. So you can guess a million things, but I guarantee you, if someone comes at you with a knife & scissors & threatens you, are you really going to care that much that she MAY have a mental condition or be on amphetimines or whatever? Or is your first concern going to be for your own protection & those around you?

Seems like the cops could've done something else, though. Stand way back until she calmed down? But it says she "came at" the officers with a weapon, so maybe they tried that, but it didn't work.

So sad. I'm gonna guess her employer, a Costco subcontractor, is gonna lose that subcontract.

[niyad]

40. she had a knife and scissors because she was sampling pizza. neither the knives or the scissors

are that big, and they CERTAINLY do not constitute a threat to armed, trained officers. I wan't to know what that "acting strangely" was, because, according to the article, one woman who spoke to her just before the shooting said she was very nice.

something very wrong here.

[NickB79]

65. Small scissors and knives are most certainly a threat

A 2" blade is long enough to reach and sever major arteries and veins in your neck. A box cutter in the carotid artery is not going to end well.

Most of your training goes out the window the moment a person gets within stabbing distance of you. At that point, it's mainly just a messy struggle for survival.

[niyad]

73. she didn't have a box cutter, she had a knife and scissors for the pizza. and, as others have

pointed out, surely the FIVE deputies could have subdued her. "Training goes out the window"? NO, that is crap. TRAINING is just that--training for emergency situations. if your "training goes right out the window", then, either the training wasn't good, or you are not good at your job.

[Live and Learn]

78. Only if you let them get that close and even then it would require a great deal of luck.

on their part.

Good grief, the fear that has swept this nation is simply ridiculous. If you are killed by a box cutter, you are extremely unlucky or a coward that just laid down to die and let them kill you. A box cutter has to be one of the most unlikely weapons to result in death.

[Eddie Haskell]

69. Have you ever been to Costco?

Half the shoppers are sitting in handicap carts that couldn't evade a ninja turtle. Yet, this crazed pizza cutter harmed no one.

[arely staircase]

2. alternative headline

woman coming at police with a knife shot dead.

[loli phabay]

3. so far locally the word is that she did have a knife.

[savalez]

4. how do you cut pizza samples without a knife?

[arely staircase]

6. not by running at cops with it

nt

[cali]

12. and you know she was running at them? bzzzzt. No you fucking don't

the cops claim she was advancing on them. Some people idiotically want to believe that every word out of a cop's mouth is gospel

And advancing doesn't necessarily mean running, but thanks for making up shit!

[arely staircase]

14. well, the witnesses stories don't match your headline

that is for sure. you have implied she was simply handing out pizza when the cops showed up and gunned her down.

I do "fucking" know that.

[savalez]

86. Running?

not by running at cops with it

Where does it say she was running at the police?

[HiPointDem]

47. with a pizza wheel.

[savalez]

87. Sure, or a knife, or even...

...drum roll... pizza scissors.



I am skeptical.

[cali]

9. bullshit. It couldn't be clearer that this was a woman in the midst of

mental health crisis of some sort. Maybe a diabetic with low blood sugar. Maybe someone bi-polar. It's almost certain the knife she was holding was from cutting the pizza, hell it may even have been a pizza wheel. She was disoriented.

Police need to be able to disarm and handle someone who is mentally ill without fucking shooting them dead. Furthermore, at least one witness said there was virtually no time between the cops telling her to drop the "weapon"- and no, I sure as shit do not automatically trust cops to be telling the truth about fucking anything- and the cops firing 4 or 5 rounds.

Cops should be trained to handle these situations without resorting to lethal force. It happens way too fucking often in this country.

[Doremus]

17. My initial thought was she had a brain tumor or was having a stroke.

How horrible for her that the cops who responded couldn't fathom any other way of handling it than shooting her dead.

May their actions haunt them the rest of their lives.

[Honeycombe8]

19. My first thought was drugs. For a stun gun not to work. Heavy duty drugs.

But you're right...I can't imagine there wasn't another way to handle this. How sad.

[Ready4Change]

44. Stun guns aren't perfect.

These aren't Star Trek phasers set on stun.

Lots of reasons stun guns won't work 100% of the time. Both electrodes need to reach flesh. Thick cloth, like a suit jacket, or leather, like a belt, can keep one electrode from completing the circuit. And that's assuming that in the moment you try to use it that you can get off a clear enough shot that both electrodes hit body mass. Statistically, people in stress situations miss very close range shots all the time, even cops. Plus, despite manufacturers sales pitches, the things can just plain malfunction.

Worse, the attempt to use the stun gun used up time. Stun guns have a relatively short range. The time it takes to shoot, then realize it hasn't worked can allow an assailant to close the gap. This is one of the arguments against their use. By trying to engage and stun, the cops put themselves at risk.

Admittedly I am assuming here that she was approaching the police, closing the gap, as the police are saying. Whether or not one should believe them is another discussion.

[krispos42]

75. Or an apron. n/t

[Ready4Change]

80. Yep

Any bit of cloth that would catch the electrode before it can contact flesh.

[Auntie Bush]

27. Ditto for me! "May their actions haunt them the rest of their lives."

[Honeycombe8]

22. I was thinking amphetimines. Too many and/or too long. Wigged out. Won't react to stun guns.

That was my first thought.

I'd say meth, but I don't know enough about that.

[Ilsa]

26. Police were so poorly trained they couldn't

tackle a woman with a pizza wheel or knife without shooting her dead? This has failure written all over it. Training, philosophy, having even a modicum of humanity.
I agree with you completely.

[marions ghost]

70. Yep big fail

Give the cops a course in knife defense. Soon.

Several cops couldn't stop this woman short of killing her? Who is crazy in this picture?

[arely staircase]

28. couldn't be clearer?

is that your official diagnosis, doc?

[Bonobo]

29. Cops ARE trained to handle it.

But there are two additional bits to the equation that add up to "let's shoot to kill".

One is pure fucking laziness and the other is a tremendous lack of respect for life.

[Yo_Mama]

36. But before the cops got there, she was threatening others

That's why the cops were called:

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.

It's awful that this lady is dead, but I think just blaming the cops is too much of a leap.

[indie9197]

8. If two cops can't disarm a woman with a knife without killing her

they shouldn't be cops. This woman was probably having mental problems. Sad for her family and friends.

[cali]

10. exactly.

[cherokeeprogressive]

15. End of discussion. n/t

[Lex]

20. Amen. nt

[Apophis]

49. Yep.

[defacto7]

51. ^^ this ^^

Why is the rule these days, If it moves, shoot it dead, If there's something in their hand, shoot them dead. if they are on their own property, shoot them dead. If the speak, shoot them dead. If they don't speak, shoot them dead. If they look strange... shoot them dead.

Next thing... if you loose at a poker game, shoot them dead.

I'm sick of this shit.

[villager]

57. We're at the point where we citizens need a force to protect us from the police

n/t

[defacto7]

58. Naw, that's just more of the same and worse.

Most police and sheriffs systems are organized completely wrong and have little oversight. Their organizations should be completely torn down and restructured with major oversight right up the line instead of the secret society that is self controlled and bound to a brotherhood. Why should they be different than any other organization for public service?

[villager]

59. Except they are different. And since they won't tear down and reorganize themselves, what are our

...options?

[defacto7]

61. Whatever it is, it's a slow process.

Make the local governments do the job they are put into office to do I guess. 'Not too reassuring I suppose. But escalating conflict with closed organizations like them is suicide. Tear them down slowly from the inside is probably the only rational answer.

[villager]

62. I really meant we needed some kind of institutional counter-weight to the police...

...who are becoming steadily more militarized, berserk, and out of control.

Though that assumes institutions are still on our side, or "for" us, and of course, they're not.

[defacto7]

63. You have any ideas?

for an institutional counter weight? How would it operate?

[ronnie624]

56. And I'm highly skeptical about the knife claim.

It is very difficult to cut pizza with a knife. If she was there to hand out pizza samples, surely she would have the necessary tools.

We'll see.

[hatrack]

11. "Came At" - what the fuck does that mean? Lunged? Dove? Walked? Strolled? Sprinted? Slipped?

Obviously, a crazed pizza sample distributor can only be stopped by a Good Guy With A Gun.

[Eddie Haskell]

16. She passed out and they shot her where she fell.

I'm a law abiding citizen, but I fear cops more than criminals. They are a dangerous lot.

[defacto7]

52. Cowards!

Cowards! Cowards! Cowards!

Is there no damn police that isn't shaking in his boots that can't do anything without shooting it? Or unable to think responsibly about a situation? Oh, they can't take her down by physical force because they don't have time to put on their rubber gloves and masks... hey they might catch AIDS or Syphilis of a bad cold. Shoot her.

[Honeycombe8]

18. Sounds like she was on some heavy duty drugs? For a stun gun not to work & the

odd behavior.

Geez, it seems like there should've been a better way to handle that. But I wasn't there, so, someone charging at you with a knife, and your stun gun doesn't work, I guess you react with your next weapon. It's too dangerous to wrestle someone with a knife.

Geez.

[niyad]

42. the stun gun didn't work--could have malfunctioned, not been charged. doesn't really say that it

didn't work on her.

[stevenleser]

21. Don't police wear vests that stop both bullets and knives? I don't understand this.

I had an elderly lady for an English professor in college. She had been a police officer in NYC in her younger days, I can't remember if it was 1940s, 1950s or 1960s.

Anyway, she said that they all had big blankets in their squad cars for this kind of situation, i.e. people who seemed disturbed or mentally ill that had weapons like knives, bats, etc.

They would throw the blanket over the person and wrap them up and then disarm them and take them into custody.

She said there was little to no excuse for shooting someone in this kind of situation.

[loli phabay]

24. the vests wont stop a knife, a knife across the wrist can kill also

Negating the vest completely as you have to put your hands within knife range to grab the person.

[Yo_Mama]

37. I think training has shifted more to the use of the taser

And that doesn't always work. But younger cops aren't trained to use that technique, I think.

[Nay]

81. Taser, yes, but most cops also carry OC spray and a baton, which they train with

regularly. I have no idea why the cops leaped straight to shooting this woman. They jumped a couple of steps in the "continuum of force" chart, that's fer damn sure. She may certainly have run at them with a knife and they may have felt that shoppers were also at risk. The store tape should show what happened, if there is one.

[HiPointDem]

23. wtf? something sounds off here. the vagueness of the account, for one thing.

"acting oddly"
"seemed upset about the pizza"

so they called the cops to handle the 'disturbance'.

what disturbance? acting oddly about the pizza isn't a 'disturbance'.

'came at officers with a weapon, which some witnesses said was a knife'.

and what did the other witnesses say it was, a spoon? a piece of pizza? what?

the stun gun 'did not work'.

'one of the deputies' shot the woman.

how many deputies were there and which one shot?

[Neurotica]

30. She was first threatening employees with a knife and scissors.

She continued to escalate the situation and Costco called the police.

I was on my way there this afternoon to do some graduation party shopping when I heard a news report on WTOP.

Let's wait until the facts are all in before making judgments.

[HiPointDem]

31. i didn't make any judgement except that something sounds off & unnecessarily vague about the

OP.

of course, i'm basing that opinion on the presumption that if the police shoot a store product demonstrator, inside the store, while the store is in operation, there's a damn good reason and the media can at least get the facts straight before they publish.

maybe that's too much to ask these days.

five shots to subdue a woman in a store, who had no gun, and still one of them hit one of the police.

keystone cops on acid.

[Neurotica]

32. Sadly, it's often too much to ask given the sorry state of journalism. n/t

[HiPointDem]

33. perhaps it also has something to do with the sad state of policing, and the sad state of the economy

[loli phabay]

35. seems she was threatening other employees, they called the sheriff

When the two units arrived she ran, she was cornered. One deputy deployed his taser (x26, with a 21 foot range, so he was closer) there was not good contact with the probes and she came at him. His partner fired at her and due to reaction time she had closed the range hence him clipping his partner. Eyewitnesses seem to say she had a knife or scissors and they believed her threats. Local radio has already talked with a lot of witnesses and had call ins.

[Neurotica]

39. Scary situation for sure and sad for everyone involved.

I haven't heard any more radio reports since the initial ones in the 4-6 pm timeframe. Hopefully the WaPo and local papers will get and print more of the details you've referenced.

[AndyA]

34. Those plastic knives can be dangerous!

Why, they might even scratch before they break!

Hopefully, we'll find out more. So many things that could have been going on. Perhaps the woman was having a stroke or something.

There seem to be a lot of cops killing people stories lately...

[arely staircase]

38. where did you read "plastic" knife?

nt

[nobodyspecial]

48. Who needs facts when you can make shit up

to further your own narrative?

[AndyA]

71. Sarcasm n/t

[Egalitarian Thug]

41. And so it goes... another in an endless stream of murderers with a badge defended by

thoroughly disgusting WOETO.

[niyad]

43. the "breaking news" headline was "deputy shot", not "woman killed by deputies"-- amazing.

[RedCappedBandit]

45. Cops need better training

in ways to deal with people to may not be in total control. Physically and psychologically. As it stands, they're ill prepared to deal with someone who doesn't fall within the realms of 'normal'.

[spanone]

46. you'd think we would find some fucking way to subdue people other than killing them

[Life Long Dem]

53. The stun gun didn't work

Did they have pepper spray as well? If so, why didn't they use this instead of a lethal weapon?

[tblue37]

64. In the comments, a man who was in the store at the time

says that there were about 8 cops! Surely more than one of them had a Taser to use when the first Tasing effort failed.

Another (diabetic) commenter told about an incident that occurred when she inadvertently let her blood sugar get too low. Her husband tells her that she had a cocked, loaded gun aimed at him when he came into the house. She says, though, that she has no memory of the incident. Low blood sugar could easily have been the cause of the woman's sudden switch from being polite and friendly to behaving erratically. So could a stroke or a TIA.

I think that most cops are just very badly trained; especially they are not trained to deal with someone who might be suffering from a medical condition or from a psychological disturbance. I have read a lot of articles in which cops Tase diabetics in comas--sometimes Tasing them so many times that they end up killing them. But their training should make them aware of what a diabetic coma looks like. If they had any awareness at all of such conditions, they would not automatically assume that a person in a coma is just being an uncooperative drunk.

They also Tase or even shoot people who are deaf because the deaf people do not obey their shouted instructions. Anything someone has in his or her hands is assumed to be a weapon, so the cops shoot if the person has something in his or her hand. am severely hearing impaired. If a cop told me to put down something I was carrying in my hand, I would not understand what the cop was saying, so I would not "obey" the command. Under such circumstances, they would probably shoot me. The fact that I am a woman and nearly 63 years old would not protect me, either, because they shoot or at least Tase anyone, regardless of whether the person is young or old, large or small, strong or weak, male or female.

The cops are poorly trained to begin with, and scared of their shadows, to boot. They get all excited and jumpy, and the slightest movement or sound sets them off. I can just imagine how excited those 8 cops felt racing to the incident. A lot of them are also jumped up on steroids, so they tend to overreact for that reason, too.

I hope there is security video from the store--and that it doesn't conveniently get lost or accidentally erased. I am almost certain that we will learn that this shooting, though it will undoubtedly be called "justified" by the police department, will turn out to be the result of overreaction by a jumpy, poorly trained cop.

[Sheldon Cooper]

72. I think it is poor training, and a few other things.

I think cops just taze people now as their first resort, instead of the old days when they'd wrestle them to the ground and cuff them. Or, as someone upthread mentioned, throw a blanket over them to subdue them. They dont' want to risk personal injury, or perhaps the perp grabbing the cop's weapon, so immediately the taser comes out. I don't want to see cops injured either, but tasers are problemmatic.

For starters, a taser has to make good contact with the perp in order to be effective. Second, like you, many people are hearing impaired, and some are of lower intelligence, and aren't capable of hearing or understanding commands. They stand there, looking bewildered, and because they didn't obey the cop that very instant, they're tasered. Next, once the perp is on the ground, their body is feeling the effects of the taser, and they are thrashing or unable to physically respond to a command such as 'put your hands above your head'. Their muscles simply won't cooperate. The cop views this as disobedience and taser them again and again. When they can't respond immediately, they just shoot them.

If they see anything in your hand, anything at all, they assume it's a weapon and start blasting away without even trying to discern what the object is.

Then they write up their report to indicate that the perp had an unknown object in their hand, did not respond to commands, could not be subdued, so we shot them. It's so damned stupid. If they had more common sense training and less of a paramilitary mindset, they could at least try to stop all these unnecessary murders.

[tblue37]

88. I am almost 63, and I have cardiac arhythmia.

If I ever got Tased, I probably would die from it.

I have an activist/civil protest mindset. I used to protest the Vietnam War, and there are many things I am inclined to protest these days, too. But since the government, at all levels (and both Republicans and Democrats in positions of power) no longer tolerate any attempt to exercise our First Amendment right to peaceable assembly to petition for redress of wrongs, I am honestly afraid to get involved in such rallies to protest policies that I want to protest.

The cops have shown themselves willing to Tase anyone, regardless of age, size, or gender, and even without any real reason, I do not believe my being an aging, short (5' 3&quot female with a cane would prevent them from Tasing me for daring to stand out in public with a sign to protest something. They have tased very young children, and very old and handicapped people. I collect such stories from news reports, and some are so appalling that they seem to belong in the old USSR, rather than in the US!

[WCGreen]

55. Perhaps a shot in the leg may have been the correct response to an elderly

woman waving a knife around.

But then again it is not me who has to react to whatever comes my way...

[damnedifIknow]

76. I agree

If this woman posed such a threat to these officers why not shoot her in the leg instead of a kill shot? Who the hell are training these people Dirty Harry?

How about a dose of pepper spray? Don't most cops carry pepper spray now?

[defacto7]

60. When I was 20, an old woman maybe 75 came at me in the house

I was staying in with a gun saying she was going to kill me. Hell it wasn't a couple of minutes of talk and I was able to take the gun from her and the next thing you know I was making her a Gin and Coke laughing it off with her. But that was one hell of a drink I made her too.

I've had incidents with people and knives too. Sure they were dangerous, but nothing that couldn't be settled with a little listening, reasoning and talk. Lucky? a little, but mostly aware and hell you don't just shoot.

[loli phabay]

66. amazing story old chap.

[JVS]

74. Gin and Coke? It would have been more merciful to shoot her!

But seriously, what a groty drink!

[defacto7]

84. Actually it was more gin than coke by about 30 to 1.

ha.

[In_The_Wind]

67. Bad shooting decision.

[Eddie Haskell]

68. Isn't this a scene from The Simpson's?

Seriously?

[niyad]

77. I love the way this is phrased:

Police say the second deputy fired several shots, killing the woman. She was identified as 38-year-old Mhai Scott of Sterling.

Authorities say Scott worked for Club Demonstration Services, which provides services to Costco. The Washington Post reports Scott had been serving pizza.

""""One deputy was injured. He was treated and released at a local hospital.""""""

http://www.freep.com/article/20130530/NEWS07/305300058/costco-deputy-shot-killed-woman-virginia


implication is that the woman injured him, rather than that he was shot by another officer.

and this is the detroit free press. very disappointing.

[niyad]

79. FIVE SHOTS? this article has slightly more information

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/deputy-woman-shot-at-costco-in-loudoun-county/2013/05/29/e5c4656a-c897-11e2-9245-773c0123c027_story.html

most of the articles I am reading say "deputy shot", seeming to imply that the dead woman was responsible. only one or two of them say that it was probably a ricochet from one of the multiple shots fired at the woman.

she was "making strange comments about the pizza"? perhaps that would indicate that there was some sort of mental or emotional problem?

[cbdo2007]

82. Whatever happened to shooting someone in the leg??

It is far too common nowadays that attacking the police turns in to a "shoot to kill" situation. God forbid the cops have to get their uniforms dirty by actually subdueing someone rather than just killing them.

[justiceischeap]

83. Sounds like the behavior of someone who neglects their insulin shots

Wonder if the woman was diabetic and her sugar levels were off.

[Corruption Inc]

85. NBC is M$M, they're incapable of investigating anything or reporting on it

They sell commercials and fill the space in between with whatever they can make up.