Washington Post raises questions about Fil-Am’s death

MANILA, Philippines—Did she have to die?

The Washington Post on Sunday weighed in on the death of Filipino immigrant Mylene de Leon Scott at a Virginia supermarket on May 29, saying that the police had some explaining to do for using lethal force to subdue the “tiny woman.”

In an editorial on Sunday, The Post called out the Loudon county sheriff for giving an assessment that was “not just preliminary but premature” in declaring that his officers had responded according to procedure in deciding to fire on Scott.

“The county sheriff, Michael L. Chapman, seems to think his deputies had no choice but to shoot Ms Scott, 38, who was working as a pizza server at the time of her death. Based on what he acknowledges is preliminary information, he says the officers acted according to procedure, in justified self-defense, when Ms Scott came at them with the knife,” read The Post editorial.

Scott, a 38-year-old pizza server at a Costco outlet in Sterling, Virginia, was shot dead after she allegedly started behaving strangely at the supermarket at around 3 p.m. on May 29. Police said she had threatened to harm her fellow employees while wielding a knife and scissors and had refused to surrender.

The Philippine Embassy and the Filipino community earlier called for an investigation of Scott’s death, observing that “disproportionate force” had been used to take control of Scott.

Scott was known to have been suffering from depression after her divorce and the loss of custody of her two sons.

Device malfunction

In the editorial, The Post noted that police had considered Scott to be “menacing” despiteher small size—“barely over five feet tall and not much more than 100 pounds.”

The newspaper also wondered why the officer’s Taser, by the sheriff’s account, did not work when one deputy tried to subdue Scott.

“That’s curious and concerning. It’s also unclear. Did the officer who fired the Taser miss Ms Scott? Did the device malfunction? Was Ms Scott somehow, unlikely as it seems, impervious to the electroshock?

“In fact, Tasers are relatively simple to use and generally highly effective, delivering a potent jolt from a range of up to 20 feet that almost always incapacitates the subject,” said the editorial.

“The sheriff’s office needs to find out why the Taser failed—and explain why Option B was to fire a volley of bullets at Ms Scott in a shopping aisle,”The Post said.