Ten Questions for Bill Scott, Author of The Permit

I read Bill’s book, The Permit, and was aghast at the more intimate and grim details on his son’s murder by cops in Las Vegas in 2010 depicted in the novel. This site is no stranger to reports of predation and rampant misbehavior and mayhem wrought by American police today. My twitter posts three-five new incidents of cop brutality daily. The police state in the US may be the most far-reaching residual of the American War on Terror which has become a self-fulfilling Orwellian prophecy with the use of the campaign as a means to institutionalize maximum government to keep the tax cattle safe no matter the expense in liberty and freedom.

Bill has been kind enough to grant this interview with me.

Bill Scott is now a full-time author, writing techno-thriller novels. The latest is “The Permit,” which is based on the murder of his eldest son, Erik. He co-authored two other novels, “Space Wars: The First Six Hours of World War III,” and a sequel, “Counterspace: The Next Hours of World War III,” plus one nonfiction book, “Inside the Stealth Bomber: The B-2 Story.”

Bill can be reached via the Contact section of my website, www.williambscott.com, or e-mail at: bill@williambscott.com.

While Bill and I may not agree on everything, we do agree that the US police state is a clear and present danger to any human being living within the borders of the US. -BB

 Tell the readers some of your background.

 My wife and I have been married 44 years, and we were blessed with two incredible sons, Erik and Kevin.

In 2007, I retired as the Rocky Mountain Bureau Chief, concluding a 22-year career as a writer/reporter for Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine. I’m a Flight Test Engineer graduate of the US Air Force Test Pilot School (TPS), and flight-tested aircraft for 12 years, both as an Air Force officer and civilian FTE. My undergraduate degree is in electrical engineering. While on USAF active duty, I flew classified nuclear debris-sampling/collection missions, served as an R&D engineer with the National Security Agency, and was a flight test instrumentation engineer, prior to being selected for USAF TPS. As a civil pilot with a commercial certificate and instrument and multi-engine ratings, flight test engineer, AvWeek reporter, and USAF aircrew member, I logged about 2,000 hours of flight time in 80 different types of aircraft.

Many condolences on the loss of your son; I read Erik’s story when it first happened in 2010 and then read your cathartic novel, The Permit, which fleshed out more details in a fictional narrative of the murder of your son by Las Vegas Metro cops and the subsequent cover-up. Were you surprised at the cover-up, stonewalling and general nastiness of the police after they murdered your son?

Yes, very surprised. Before Erik was shot to death, I was one of those naïve American military veterans, who thought all but a few rogue police officers also were honest public servants dedicated to protecting and serving. I quickly learned that cowardice, corruption and cover-up were the standard for about a third of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department—including the sheriff, Doug Gillespie, and his chief cover-up “spook,” Captain Patrick Neville. I arrived in Vegas two days after Erik was murdered, convinced that a sloppy, transparent cover-up was well underway. When I asked, “Why would they cover up an officer-involved shooting, which appears to be a massive screw-up, not an intentional murder?” my lawyer, several of Erik’s friends, and long-time Vegas residents looked at me as if I’d parachuted in from Mars. They unanimously replied, “Because they always cover up their murders! There’s nothing special about Erik!”

Most Americans are living in what I consider an illusion in thinking the police protect and serve anyone but the rulers and bureaucracy of the various levels of government. This especially appears to be the case with the consistently egregious behavior of the LVM. Do you consider the LVM to be a viciously compromised and self-serving entity?

Most definitely. Las Vegas Metro PD is an integral arm of the Clark County/Las Vegas Cartel of Corruption, which comprises billionaires, powerful politicians, immoral, appalling cops, a complicit district attorney’s office, compromised judges, the coroner’s office (which now encompasses Public Administrator functions), and an absolutely venal, obstructionist police union. This cartel is controlled by a Cleveland branch of the Mafia or Mob, which has its dirty paws in several of the big resort-hotels and casinos.

In short, this Cartel uses LVMPD cops as its enforcers of evil, ranging from stealing the wealth of elderly citizens to beating and executing those who can’t pay gambling debts, and forcing runaway kids into child sex rings. Paying off low-IQ cops is more sophisticated than hiring a bunch of knee-breaking “Guidos,” as the Mob does back East. Instead, the Las Vegas Cartel developed a quasi-legal “coroner inquest” system that guaranteed any murder committed by a police officer was found “Justified.” Since the late 1970s, about 200 coroner inquest hearings were held in Clark County, NV, billed as a quasi-judicial “fact-finding” exercise. Of course, not a single cop was ever found at fault. Every killing by a LV Metro cop was ruled “Justified.” Incredible.

Were you surprised at the cruel and nasty attitude and behavior of the LVM when you were attempting to get justice for Erik in the legal system?

By the time we filed our lawsuits, I knew LVMPD would stop at nothing to protect their killer-cops and Sheriff Doug Gillespie’s reelection campaign. Good, honest cops said that my phones and e-mails were being monitored, thanks to the Vegas federal-state-local “Joint Fusion Center,” which routinely uses high-tech snooping technology, under the guise of counterterrorism. Metro detectives illegally broke into, and stole several guns from, Erik’s condo, twisted the facts of his medical records (Erik had 40% of his L5 vertebra broken off, a casualty of Army airborne training. He suffered severe back pain, after a fender-bender car accident that realigned his spine in late 2009.), tried to intimidate Erik’s ex-wife, harassed Erik’s then-girlfriend (three traffic tickets within three weeks of Erik’s murder), and cherry-picked witnesses for the coroner’s inquest hearing. Further, LVM cops illegally acquired court-sealed records from another state, which were clearly stamped by a judge, stating that the claims in a detective’s report “did not occur.”

Metro detectives even pursued laughable measures to gin up a patently false narrative about Erik carrying a “second gun,” when, in fact, he only had a single pistol on his person (a legal, concealed-carry weapon), when he was shot to death. His .45-caliber Kimber Ultra Carry semiautomatic was removed from the body, after Erik’s corpse had been loaded into an AMR ambulance. That firearm was then placed on the concrete, near the entrance-exit of Costco-Summerlin in Las Vegas, supposedly as “proof” that Erik had pulled it, still in its holster.

Ooops! The ambulance EMTs’ report documented a firearm and extra magazine found on Erik’s body. That little hiccup prompted a panicked effort to break into Erik’s condo and steal a “second gun” to comport with 1) a gun found on Erik’s body, and 2) a pistol, in its holster, being on the ground, after the shooting. In fact, the only item on the ground, after Erik was shot seven times, was his BlackBerry, which he had in his right hand. At least two of Erik’s pistols, and, possibly, two rifles were stolen from the condo. Then, brilliant Metro detectives fired a hole in the handle of a small (stolen) Ruger LCP, trying to imply the small gun was in my son’s jeans front pocket, which contained Erik’s 1.75-inches-thick wallet!

A detailed analysis conducted by Mike McDaniel, a former professional police and ex-SWAT officer, trainer and crime scene investigator, completely destroys Metro’s ludicrous “two-gun” narrative. That superb analysis is available (with photos of Erik’s firearms) on Mike’s blog: The Erik Scott Case: Update 19

Is a Coroner’s Inquest designed to protect the misbehavior and brutality of the police and its allies?

In Las Vegas, NV, that’s absolutely true. The old Vegas inquest was a one-sided, bizarre perversion of due process, which made a mockery of American jurisprudence. We allowed Erik’s September 2010 inquest hearing to be televised and streamed over the Internet. Once Las Vegas citizens and thousands throughout America and many foreign countries witnessed, first-hand, this moronic kangaroo court in action, the outrage and blow-back that erupted forced a radical revision of the Clark County coroner’s inquest process. However, the Cartel of Corruption, through its proxy, an uber-arrogant Las Vegas Police Protective Association (police union), managed to put the new, revised inquest system on indefinite hold. Now, a corrupt district attorney, Steve Wolfson, reviews all officer-involved shootings and single-handedly rules whether they were justified or criminal. Over the past three years, Wolfson has found every single shooting “Justified.” Surprise! New system, same outcomes. The Cartel maintains iron-fisted control of the Southern Nevada “justice” system, ensuring Metro’s killer-cops always go free and never are held accountable for crimes that would imprison a “civilian” for life.

There are an estimated 19,000 law enforcement agencies in the USA; do you suspect the behavior and actions of the LVM are a microcosm of modern American policing?

I do, given that cops across the nation routinely commit and get away with egregious murders and acts of raw brutality. The federal Patriot Act literally gave cops a license to kill, and many don’t hesitate to shoot. As a result, law enforcement now attracts an extraordinary number of bullies and brain-damaged, angry men and women. Many of these are totally devoid of courage and conscience, and are convinced they truly are above the law. They feel they can do anything they please, and can get away with it. Backed by obscene unions, today’s cops take great umbrage with anybody daring to question their judgment, tactics, use of force, and absurd accounts of an incident.

I suggest an evil trifecta of police misbehavior in police unions, officer safety mandates and qualified immunity to be core causes of the tragedy that is the US police state today bolstered by creeping militarization and Federalization. What do you think?

I agree. As described in Chapter Ten of The Permit, law enforcement officers and agents of all stripes constitute the most dangerous domestic terrorist threat facing Americans today. Over the last few decades, cops and federal agents have killed more citizens than our nation lost at Pearl Harbor, on D-Day 1944, and on 9/11/2001…combined. An American citizen is now eight times more likely to be killed by a cop than by a terrorist. And a police officer is 130 times more likely to be involved in an act of misconduct than to be killed in the line of duty.

Police unions leverage the power of money to elect, then control, politicians. With polished, proven rhetoric, unions have tricked well-meaning, yet hopelessly naïve, politicos into passing “Qualified Immunity” laws that virtually guarantee a killer-cop will never be held accountable for murdering an innocent “civilian”—as cops now refer to lowly taxpaying citizens. Juries rarely find a cop guilty of murder or wrongdoing, because the average jurist still believes the falsehood that cops are honest and would never lie. As any experienced courtroom lawyer will confirm, though, cops do lie, even under oath.

Add to that the totally unjustified, runaway militarization of local and state police departments—aided and abetted by federal dollars and military equipment—and we now have precisely what the nation’s founders tried to prevent: A standing domestic army that exists for the sole purpose of controlling the very people who pay the jackbooted thugs’ salaries. In the 21^st Century, America truly has become a police state.

Absent a police power, how would a state deny individual freedom and liberty?

By gutting the Second Amendment and disarming American citizens, removing the only sure, last-ditch means to resist a tyrannical government. Disarmament, in itself, would inspire a power-hungry tyrant to create his own police force. No politician would allow unarmed, vulnerable masses to live as they pleased.

Any updates in the case with Erik?

I’m still pursuing legal measures, and continuing to wage asymmetric war against the Cartel of Corruption that controls Las Vegas. I don’t talk about strategies, operations and tactics, but several battles have been relatively successful. I’m aided by a small number of motivated, well-connected allies, who are quietly working behind the scenes. I’m not privy to their campaign strategies, but am assured that the Vegas Cartel and its killer-cop drones are literally living on borrowed days. I couldn’t halt these warriors’ strikes-for-justice, if I wanted to.

I hope The Permit has been well received. I would urge my readers to buy the book and, if possible, review it on Amazon. Has it caused the reaction you expected? Do you still receive threats from the LVM?

Many thanks for the endorsement, Bill. National sales of the novel continue to build steadily, thanks to overwhelmingly positive reviews, particularly on Amazon. In Las Vegas, reactions from Cartel entities are basically what we expected: Ignore the book and pretend it doesn’t exist, or, when pressed, demean and dismiss it as irrelevant. Fortunately, criticism and patronizing dismissal by the police union director, Chris Collins, and his team of online intimidator trolls backfired and has significantly increased sales of “The Permit.” Anything union cops hate and trash-talk, smart people embrace.

Metro’s threats aren’t as overt and transparent as they were a few years ago. However, the Las Vegas Joint Fusion Center’s geek-goons still may be monitoring my phone calls and e-mail messages, according to inside sources.

Before Erik was murdered, LV Metro had two public affairs officers; it now employs nine, supposedly because the “Scott Family” caused the department so much grief. The Permit also has contributed significantly to Metro’s miserable, tanking public image. I’m assured that, as a result of Erik’s senseless murder and courageous activism by “Erik’s Warriors,” LV Metro has quietly changed its policies, procedures and training dramatically. Of course, Sheriff Gillespie and his scared-stiff “Tower” staff also were motivated by the threat of a Department of Justice consent decree being imposed on the department.

I’ve been accused of being anti-cop and hating police officers. Absolutely not true. I’m deeply indebted to many good-hearted, professional police officers, who helped me expose the sordid inner workings of Las Vegas Metro, in particular, and Sin City, in general. Law enforcement professionals across the nation have patiently explained how a good police force operates. They invariably express stunned disbelief, outrage and embarrassment, when they hear how LV Metro’s badged thugs executed my son, then covered up the killers’ crimes.

These pros (and I) are quite distressed by the militarization of U.S. cops, and a few have helped me develop a presentation I call “Restore Honor.” I firmly believe that, unless good cops stand up and collectively demand that their own departments return to a “protect-and-serve” mentality and culture, our nation will explode in rebellion. As The Permit warns, armed, infuriated citizens will literally hunt down any cop sporting a badge. The level of simmering, subsurface fury I sense throughout the country, primarily directed at arrogant, above-the-law cops, is unprecedented…and scary.

I adamantly emphasize that I do not advocate violence against police officers. But “good” cops have been too silent, too willing to look the other way, for too long. I predict that, in the name of self-protection, honorable, professional cops will soon launch an aggressive crusade to Rid the Ranks of Rogues—eliminating corrupt outlaws from their own departments. Such a campaign might take the form of destroying a corrupt officer’s credit rating; pressuring a bank to foreclose on a killer-cop’s home; filing criminal charges for malfeasance, or taking more-direct action. The operation will spread rapidly, and it won’t be pretty. But, when Neanderthal killer-cops are systematically expunged from local, state and federal law enforcement, citizens will be quick to rally behind those high-integrity officers, who Restore Honor to what once was an honorable profession.

Godspeed to them.