Las Vegas police say slaying occurred near officers on traffic stop

Police were investigating a homicide Thursday morning that occurred near officers as they conducted an unrelated traffic stop in central Las Vegas.

Metropolitan Police Department Lt. Jason Johansson said that at 5:36 a.m., officers were conducting the stop of a vehicle in the area of Washington Avenue and Decatur Boulevard when gunfire rang out in the distance.

“They heard a single gunshot,” Johansson said. “Shortly after that gunshot, a call came through Metro dispatch that there was a shooting and one male was struck.”

Police rushed to the shooting scene on the 600 block of Yale Street, just off Decatur, and found a man in his 30s “in the street suffering from a gunshot wound,” Johansson said.

Officers obtained a description of the shooter, then quickly located a man in the area who matched the description. The man was taken into custody, Johansson said.

The shooting victim died at the scene.

Johansson said investigators learned the man who was killed was in front of a home in the neighborhood that he regularly visits, talking to acquaintances, when another man approached and started an argument in the street just prior to the killing. Johansson said police don’t know yet what the dispute was about.

“We do have someone detained,” Johansson said. “We are determining if that person is our suspect.”

Contact Glenn Puit at gpuit@reviewjournal.com. Follow @GlennatRJ on Twitter.