Family grieves for teen

Jarvis Delane Rice’s family said Tuesday they will never understand why police shot him eight times outside Tarkanian’s Celebrity Sports Club.

"I can live with my son being shot if he had a gun. I can live with police killing him if he had a gun," said Jessie Rice, father of the slain 19-year-old, "but I have trouble sleeping knowing that my son was shot eight times."

The shooting took place about 3 a.m. Sunday in the tavern’s parking lot at 4550 S. Maryland Parkway. Police said Rice, who had been thrown out of the club, was involved in a shootout when officers arrived and ordered him to drop his gun. Moments later, Rice was dead.

Police said Rice, who had fired several shots from two different handguns outside the nightclub, pointed a gun at a police officer.

After he was shot, police said Rice fell and reached for his gun before he was shot several more times.

Following the shooting, patrons of bar spilled into the streets and went on a window-smashing, bottle-throwing rampage that led to eight arrests.

On Tuesday, Las Vegas police identified the officer who shot Rice as Sgt. Gary G. Schofield. The 29-year-old has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the coroner’s inquest scheduled for Aug. 15.

Rice’s family struggled on Tuesday to cope with his death. They talked about the frustrations they have endured in the last few days, including getting the details of the shooting from news reports and not authorities.

"I’m not saying he was in a gang or if he wasn’t. I don’t know. But if he was, why was he in different areas of the city all of the time. A friend of his told me he didn’t have to be in a gang because he was respected by all of them," Jessie Rice said at the family’s North Las Vegas home.

Jessie Rice said his son was "no angel," but he was a caring person who would fight if provoked and would fight for his friends.

Rice’s mother, Norma Rice, said she is angry about the shooting and the way police treated her immediately afterward, including mixing up her son with another person and telling her he was going to be fine. She said she arrived at University Medical Center an hour before her son finally was brought there.

"He was my baby and I just don’t like how my son went down. I feel they treated him like a dog," she said. "That was hard, hard, stiff-necked murder."

Jessie Rice is tired of the labels "gang-related" and "drug-related" and said police should judge youngsters as individuals.

"Too many kids are accused of being in a gang because of circumstances beyond their control, like where they live," he said.

"Even if he was in a gang, does it take eight bullets to disable him?"

Rice said he does not believe the shooting was a racial incident and he has nothing against police. He said he has several friends on the force.

However, he said he served four years as a military police officer and questions the officers’ actions in connection with his son’s death.

Jessie Rice said he would like to ask the police officer who shot his son to put himself in his place. "Would he then be able to look at me and say, `Mr. Rice, I was justified in shooting him that many times because he had a gun’?"

"I could understand him shooting `Scoobie’ one or two times to disable him. But six more times? Either he didn’t know what he was doing or he just panicked."

The shooting of Rice and the mayhem that followed were by far the most serious in a rash of recent incidents outside the nightclub.

Law enforcement and county officials met with Tarkanian’s owners on Tuesday to discuss making changes that would alleviate problems caused by the club’s patrons. The written plan is due Thursday at noon.

Ned Solomon, director of the county business license department, said he could have exercised his right to force an emergency suspension of the club’s operation, but decided against it.

When the Plush Horse and Uptown clubs were closed, Solomon said the courts let them remain open to give them an opportunity to rectify the problems.