Henderson police reveal few details on shooting of couple

A Henderson neighborhood remained closed to the public Thursday afternoon, more than a day and half after a police shootout in one of the homes was followed by the discovery of a dead couple.

Henderson police released few new details about the incident, and the Clark County coroner’s office did not release the cause of death for the man and woman, both 21, who were found inside the house at 608 Breezy Sage Court.

Authorities also continued to withhold the names of the dead pair Thursday.

Keith Paul, spokesman for the Henderson Police Department, said the initial investigation indicated the man killed his wife and then shot himself.

Paul specified that he was not saying the preliminary investigation indicated the man had shot the woman, only that he had killed her. Paul wouldn’t elaborate.

“It’s an ongoing investigation. We don’t release incremental information in an ongoing investigation. It takes time to conduct an investigation properly.”

How the woman was killed is a key question, because there appeared to be a possibility that police accidentally shot her. Henderson Police Chief Richard Perkins said Wednesday that was “highly unlikely.”

About 7:15 a.m., a woman called 911 to report a domestic disturbance at the home, in a 3-year-old cul-de-sac near Boulder Highway and College Drive. When police arrived, they found a woman in her 40s and her 11-year-old son outside the house. The woman told police shots had been fired inside the house, police said.

Six officers rushed into the house. They couldn’t get into a second-story bedroom because the door was locked, so they ordered those inside to come out.

When they tried to kick in the door, shots were fired through the door, police said. One officer was shot in the leg, and all of the officers returned fire before pulling the 47-year-old officer from the house, police said.

Henderson police called Las Vegas police for assistance, and the larger department brought out a robot that was sent into the house. The camera on the robot revealed the two bodies in the upstairs bedroom.

Thomas Aveni, a police expert and cofounder of the New Hampshire-based Police Policy Studies Council, said police generally don’t shoot at what they can’t see, so it would be odd for officers to shoot through a closed door.

If officers are being shot at through a door and need to get a wounded officer out of the range of fire, however, that could prompt police to return fire through the door, Aveni said. “If you’re taking fire, it’s common to use suppressive fire to extricate the officer. It is unusual, however, to do this when you can’t see what your shooting at,” he said.

Professor David Klinger, with the criminology and criminal justice department at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, said officers usually don’t shoot through a barrier like a door unless they know there is no chance of hitting an unintended target.

“I hope for the officers’ sake that one of their bullets didn’t strike the victim,” he said.