Cop Who Shot Erik Scott Charged With Felony, Suspended Without Pay

24 year old treasure Thomas Rosco Mendiola, who shot Erik Scott in the back, has been charged with the felony crime of furnishing a firearm to a person he knew was a convicted felon.  Mendiola is presently suspended without pay.  As if this weren't startling enough, it turns out that Mendiola has something of a personal relationship with this felon.  The felon, one Robert Justice (!) has been to Mendiola's home and has worked on Mendiola's personal car on at least two separate occasions.  No honest cop (or or even a dishonest but prudent cop) would have an off duty personal relationship with a known felon, let alone hire him to work on personal property or furnish him a gun.  To my logical brain, this extraordinary lapse of judgment is only possible if Mendiola is both corrupt and supremely confident that he is above the law.

Like all pawns in the chess game of government oppression, Mendiola is actually expendable.  This fact must have dawned on Mendiola by now - a belated and no doubt surprising discovery for any smug thug in a department like Metro.  Were I Mendiola (and I thank God I'm not) I would be rather concerned right about now.  After all, with the failure of the coverup inquest to bring this shooting case to the expected and accustomed closure, he has become a real liability to the department. 

This felony case is the county's opportunity to throw Mendiola under a bus, and at first blush this looks to be exactly what's happening.  The outcome is rife with any number of potentially unpleasant results for the person of Thomas Rosco.  Failure to appear for trial, followed by bleached bones in the desert?  Prison, confined with hundreds of inmates that the cops have abused with impunity for decades?  Perhaps Mendiola should write down all the dirt he has on the entire chain of command, arrange to have everything released in the event of his disappearance or death, and let the relevant parties know of his precaution.

Information has also surfaced that Mendiola failed Las Vegas Metro's training program the first time around, and that he was given a second chance to complete the training in order to become a cop.  This is interesting on a number of levels, and the attorneys suing the officers and Clark County on behalf of the Scott family must be salivating.  From the standpoint of liability, it will be very fascinating to see why Mendiola failed training.

This just gets curiouser and curiouser.  I'm thinking the next step ought to be a civil RICO class action, if such a thing is possible..