Las Vegas officer involved in fatal shootings was part of Mandalay Bay breach
One of the two officers who shot and killed a man after he barricaded himself inside a south valley home Thursday was also part of the SWAT team that breached the Mandalay Bay gunman’s hotel room after the Route 91 shooting.
The officer, Levi Hancock, 44, has been with the department since January 2001. In a statement Saturday night, the Metropolitan Police Department said Hancock is assigned to the Homeland Security division of the department’s SWAT unit.
Hancock, along with 37-year-old officer Brett Brosnahan, were involved in the fatal shooting of a man wanted for attempted murder, who was shot at about 9 p.m. Thursday, police said. Brosnahan has been with Metro since March 2009, the department said Saturday.
Both officers have been placed on routine paid administrative leave.
The shooting happened at a home in the 400 block of Macbrey Drive, after the man barricaded himself in the home, Metropolitan Police Department Capt. Jaime Prosser said at the scene early Friday morning.
Detectives were attempting to arrest the man, who had “multiple violent felony warrants,” before the barricade in a neighborhood near Hidden Palms Parkway and East Pebble Road.
The Clark County coroner’s office has not yet identified the man, who died at the scene. Before exchanging gunfire with police, the man had been holed up inside the home for about four and a half hours, Prosser said Friday.
On Oct. 1, 2017, Hancock was on the team that breached a mass shooter’s hotel suite at Mandalay Bay.
Three days after the Route 91 shooting, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo identified Hancock to President Donald Trump during the president’s brief visit to Metro headquarters.
“Officer Hancock there at the end, to your right there — he was the first SWAT officer to engage the individual,” Lombardo told the president, according to a White House transcript from the Oct. 4 visit.
This is the second time Hancock has been involved in a police shooting since the Route 91 attack. On November 7, 2017, Hancock was one of two officers who shot and killed a double homicide suspect after the man also barricaded himself inside a home for hours.
The suspect, Jarrett Blakely Varnado, began a standoff with police after two men were found dead in a neighborhood near Flamingo Road and Tenaya Way. Hancock and officer Kai Hoskins shot Varnado after pointing a replica handgun at officers, which was later determined to be a BB gun.
After Thursday’s shooting, police did not say whether the man lived at the home he barricaded himself in. Officers called a SWAT team and crisis negotiators to attempt to arrest him during the barricade, Prosser said Friday.
Information about his warrants, including one for attempted murder, was not immediately available.
This is the first Metro officer-involved shooting this year, according to Las Vegas Review-Journal records. The department will release further details about the shooting 72 hours after it happened, per Metro policy.
Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.