Man, 20, fatally shot in central Las Vegas Valley
A 20-year-old man was shot and killed midday Sunday while walking with his girlfriend in the Historic Westside neighborhood, Las Vegas police said.
The couple were walking west about 12:30 p.m. on the north side of West Lake Mead Boulevard, near J Street, when another man came up from behind them and fired several times, Metropolitan Police Department Lt. Ray Spencer said. The 20-year-old was hospitalized with multiple gunshot wounds at University Medical Center, where he died.
The man killed was armed, but it wasn’t clear whether there was an exchange of gunfire, Spencer said. Police were investigating a possible gang connection to the shooting, and gang detectives joined homicide detectives at the scene Sunday afternoon.
“We’re fairly certain that the victim was targeted in this situation,” Spencer said.
The man’s girlfriend was uninjured but shaken up after the shooting, he said. Police were speaking with her.
Witnesses told police that the assailant took off east from the scene after the shooting, but Metro hasn’t yet found him, Spencer said. Police were looking for security footage in the area.
Detectives had identified several witness, but Spencer urged anybody with additional information to come forward, as some witnesses had left the scene without speaking with police about the shooting. Those people can contact Crime Stoppers to remain anonymous, he said.
“We cannot tolerate acts like this,” Spencer said.
The Clark County coroner’s office will release the deceased’s identity after his family has been notified.
The man’s death marked the 187th homicide investigated within Clark County and the 142nd investigated by Metro this year, according to Las Vegas Review-Journal records.
In August, Charles Allen Flowers Jr., 29, was gunned down in an apartment complex parking lot near Lake Mead and H Street, down the street from Sunday’s deadly shooting.
Contact Mike Shoro at mshoro@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5290. Follow @mike_shoro on Twitter. Review-Journal staff writer Katelyn Newberg contributed to this report.
