Suspect in homeless killings wanted to ‘protect my family’
A man’s desire to “protect his family” after an attempted break-in of his sister-in-law’s home was the motive behind a shooting last month in east Las Vegas that left two homeless people dead and three wounded, according to an arrest report.
The sister-in-law of Cristobal Omar Perez, the suspect in the Dec. 1 mass shooting, told him she believed she had seen a man at a gas station across from a homeless encampment who matched the description of the person trying to invade her home, according to the Metropolitan Police Department arrest report.
Omar Perez, 31, decided to confront the individual by being dropped off near the Arco station at 3885 E. Charleston Blvd., and then leaving the area, enlisting his girlfriend Kylee Au Young, 21, to meet him some blocks away in a getaway vehicle, according to the report.
Au Young, before driving to pick up Perez, told him “don’t do anything stupid,” but admitted to police later that based on his past violent behavior, she thought the confrontation would result in a serious injury, the reported stated.
Homicide Lt. Jason Johansson said Perez fired 14 shots from a 9mm handgun “indiscriminately” and in “cold blood” at five homeless people, mostly living in tents on the sidewalk at the corner of Honolulu Street and Charleston.
Timothy Bratton, 57, died that day from a gunshot to the chest and Ashley Burnell, 38, died at University Medical Center on Dec. 8 from a shot to the head, according to the Clark County coroner’s office.
Omar Perez faces 13 felony charges, including two counts of murder, three counts of attempted murder, three counts of battery with a deadly weapon, three counts of assault with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit murder and a gun charge.
Au Young is facing two counts of murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder.
Both defendants appeared Tuesday before Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Diana Sullivan, who read the charges against them.
Each said they understood the allegations and waived their rights to speedy preliminary hearings.
Sullivan said the two would continue to be held without bail.
The survivors included one man shot in the back and grazed in head, another man hit in the right thigh and a third man wounded in his left elbow, the report stated.
Au Young later told police that after Omar Perez’s sister-in-law informed him of the man who tried to enter the house, he said he decided he had to confront the person in order to “protect his family.”
According to police, minutes before the shooting, Omar Perez was seen loitering near North Honolulu and Chang streets, and after the shooting, fled south across Charleston Boulevard and into the front passenger seat of a black SUV, which drove to a nearby apartment complex where Au Young was waiting for him.
Au Young said that after she picked up Omar Perez in her silver Toyota Tacoma and drove away, amid passing emergency vehicles, she asked him what he had done, according to the report.
“You don’t want to know,” she said Omar Perez told her, and then she said she started to cry, drove to another gas station and then to her grandparents’ house where they were staying, the police report stated.
About a week later, Au Young said that she saw a news report that included a video clip of a suspect running from the scene and entering a vehicle, but she never tried to contact police or distance herself from Omar Perez, police stated in the report.
“Kylee referenced how she wanted a family with Cristobal, did not want to lose him and wished the incident wasn’t true,” according to the report.
Police used Google geofencing data and cellular phone records to pinpoint Omar Perez in the area of the killings, according to the report.
Detectives also used photos posted on Au Young’s Facebook and Instagram accounts to confirm the identifies of both suspects, the report showed.
Contact Jeff Burbank at jburbank@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0382. Follow him @JeffBurbank2 on X. Intern Peter S. Levitt contributed to this story.