Las Vegas police: Gun in Mikalonis shooting linked to another

Six months before Edgar Samaniego was charged in the shooting and critical wounding of Metropolitan Police Department officer Shay Mikalonis, a different man used the same gun in a January shooting, according to police documents.

Tajae Miller, 27, was identified as a potential suspect shortly after he allegedly shot a man early Jan. 1 at a Las Vegas Valley apartment complex, according to his arrest report.

But Miller wasn’t arrested in connection with the shooting until after Samaniego allegedly used the same gun to shoot Mikalonis in the head, as the officer attempted to arrest someone during a police-brutality protest on the Las Vegas Strip.

Mikalonis, who was paralyzed from the neck down because of the shooting, has been moved to an out-of-state rehabilitation facility that specializes in spinal cord injuries.

Casings from the apartment complex shooting connected the weapon to Samaniego, but it was unclear from Miller’s arrest report how Samaniego got the gun, or if the men knew each other.

“Based on the information thus far in both investigations, these two shootings events do not have any correlation with each other than the same firearm was used,” Miller’s arrest report said.

On June 2, “it was discovered” that the gun Miller allegedly used was the same one that injured Mikalonis, the report said. Three days later, a woman present at the January shooting was arrested in a separate case, and she identified Miller as the shooter. Police used the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network database to link the gun to both shootings.

On June 20, a little more than two weeks after police identified the gun, Miller was arrested and booked into the Clark County Detention Center, court records show.

New Year’s shooting

About 5:20 a.m. Jan. 1, a woman called 911 to report that her boyfriend had been shot outside her apartment, the arrest report said. Metro’s gunshot-detection system, called ShotSpotter, also detected 12 gunshots in the area, the report said.

According to the report, the woman had been at the Gold Spike celebrating New Year’s Eve with a friend and the friend’s sister, with whom she started arguing. Later in the night, two fights broke out between the two at the friend’s apartment complex.

About three hours later, the woman was at her apartment with her boyfriend. When they went outside, at least two men jumped out of a car, the report said.

The couple ran back toward their apartment and took cover when the woman heard seven to 10 gunshots, she later told police.

Her boyfriend was shot in the shoulder and was taken to University Medical Center. Gang detectives were also called to the scene because one of the people involved had been “documented as a gang member,” the report said.

Police identified two cars believed to have been involved in the shooting — a Dodge Challenger and a Dodge Charger — but witnesses were unable to say who the shooter was.

Investigators identified Miller as the registered driver of the purple Dodge Charger, the report said. Two weeks after the shooting, police searched Miller’s home, where they found a rifle, ammunition and a Smith & Wesson magazine.

Six months later, cartridge cases from the scene of Mikalonis’ shooting, which matched cartridges from the January shooting, would lead police to a Glock 19 gun in a Travelodge by Wyndham motel room that Samaniego was staying in, according to the 20-year-old’s arrest report.

During the execution of the search warrant in January, Miller declined to speak with detectives, the report said. He was arrested on a traffic warrant, posted bond two days later and was released from jail, court records show.

It was unclear from the report if police interviewed anyone else involved in the January shooting following the search warrant until after Mikalonis was shot in June.

Miller has been charged with two counts of attempted murder, battery with a deadly weapon resulting in substantial bodily harm, and 10 counts of discharging a gun into an occupied structure, court records show.

He was released from jail in July after posting a surety bond on a $75,000 bail, court records show. On Saturday, Miller remained on medium-level electronic monitoring, and a preliminary hearing is scheduled for Sept. 16.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.