Bullets, blood but no victim perplex Las Vegas police

Just after 7:20 a.m. Friday, a person heading to work called 911 after finding spent shell casings on the 4000 block of Spencer Street, near East Flamingo Road and South Eastern Avenue, according to Metropolitan Police Department spokeswoman Alejandra Zambrano.

Scouring the scene for more casings, officers stumbled across a long trail of blood.

They followed it north along Spencer until they reached Viking Road, where the trail went cold, Zambrano said.

Eventually, though, the officers picked up again and followed it to the driveway of a house on the 3900 block of Tudur Lane, about four blocks away from where the casings had been found.

At 10:05 a.m., after backup had arrived and more officers were strategically staged around the home, police conducted a welfare check “to make sure no one was injured,” Zambrano said.

A man walked out of the home minutes later, but he was uninjured and cooperative with police, Zambrano said.

By 10:21 a.m., police had determined that no one else was inside with the man, and law enforcement cleared from the neighborhood shortly thereafter, she said.

Zambrano said police are continuing to investigate the so-far victimless crime.

Crime scene analysts were testing the blood to determine whether it came from a human or an animal while officers were working to track down video surveillance footage in the area.

Anyone with information may call Metro at 702-828-3111 or Crime Stoppers at 702-385-5555 to submit an anonymous tip.

Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter. Review-Journal reporter Amanda Bradford contributed to this report.