Man shot, killed during standoff with Las Vegas police
A man was fatally shot by police after he waved a gun toward others, and pointed it at himself, Saturday morning near downtown Las Vegas.
The police shooting — the Metropolitan Police Department’s second in less than 24 hours — happened shortly after 7 a.m. on the 900 block of Doolittle Avenue, near the Sunset Palms Apartments, Las Vegas police said.
Officers responded to a domestic disturbance call at about 5 a.m., Metropolitan Police Department Capt. Jamie Prosser said. The man was in a standoff with police from about 6 to 7 a.m., which was livestreamed on Facebook by a resident of the apartment complex.
Prosser said the man fired two shots before police arrived, once in his home and once while leaving it. None of his family members inside the home were injured.
For more than an hour, the man walked through the neighborhood with the gun, refusing to obey commands to drop it, police said.
“The suspect was still armed with the firearm; he was waving it around recklessly toward citizens as well as officers,” Prosser said.
The man also pointed the gun at his own head, she said. Police attempted to convince the man to surrender before shooting, she said.
“They attempted to de-escalate the situation by talking to him, attempting to get him to give up peacefully, requesting further units, trying to do anything they could to potentially bring this to a peaceful resolution,” Prosser said.
It was unclear if police attempted to use a stun gun or a bean-bag shotgun before shooting him.
About 7:20 a.m., SWAT officers arrived at the scene. The man was still waving the gun toward officers and residents, Prosser said.
That’s when a SWAT sniper shot the man, she said.
He was taken to University Medical Center, where he died.
Before the shooting, residents of the apartment complex watched the standoff from their homes. Resident D Nova Miller heard loud noises, went outside and recorded video with his cellphone.
Miller said he streamed the standoff on Facebook Live for more than an hour, showing the man walking in the street and occasionally pointing the gun at his own head.
“I just recorded because I never seen nothing like this,” Miller said. “Something told me to record it.”
The video was viewed nearly 40,000 times by Saturday afternoon. Miller said he didn’t know the man.
The man is seen in the video screaming at officers with guns aimed at him. Miller said there was a large crowd outside with him as he recorded.
Toward the end of the video, Miller said his phone malfunctioned, and he wasn’t able to record the shooting. He said he saw police shoot the man in the street about 15 minutes after the video ended.
On Friday afternoon, police shot a man they said stabbed two women and ran from officers while carrying a knife. The suspect, Caleb Rydlin Hill, 38, was in critical condition Friday; his condition Saturday was unclear.
He faces charges of attempted murder and resisting an officer with a weapon that wasn’t a gun.
Saturday’s police shooting marks the eighth for Metro in August, and the 18th this year. The Henderson Police Department also had a police shooting this month.
The names of the officers in the shootings will be released within 48 hours, and more details will be released in 72 hours, per Metro policy.
Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.
