Henderson tow company employee shot and killed man, lawsuit alleges
A wrongful death lawsuit filed Friday alleges that a Henderson tow company employee shot and killed an unarmed man in front of his wife and daughter after he tried to retrieve property from his vehicle.
Dalton Hannah was killed Oct. 10 as he exited the Titan Towing yard in the 200 block of West Warm Springs Road, according to the complaint and the Henderson Police Department.
The lawsuit was filed by attorneys Bob Vannah and John Greene on behalf of Sabrina Phillips, Hannah’s wife, and his daughter.
“He’s not a bad person or anything,” Vannah told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “He’s just a husband, father and he wants his tools out of a $2,000 car. The whole thing is insanity, and he ends up getting killed going over there to get the tools.”
A person who answered the phone at the towing company and would not provide her name declined to comment Monday.
Henderson police did not respond to questions about whether the unidentified person accused in the shooting has been charged. The gunman is only identified in the suit as a John Doe and someone “allegedly named ‘Joseph.’”
Police said the case is open and active.
At 10:04 a.m. on Oct. 10, police responded to a report of a shooting. Detectives determined that two men, a 25-year-old and a 29-year-old employee, were arguing, according to police. The 25-year-old was pepper-sprayed and asked to leave the property, but the argument continued, police said, and the employee shot the other man.
According to the lawsuit, a vehicle that belonged to Phillips or Hannah was towed from the Pine Village Apartments in the 3000 block of Arville Street in Las Vegas. They hadn’t received advance notice it would be towed, and apartment management denied they had requested the tow, according to the complaint, but provided contact information for Titan.
Titan wanted $390 to reclaim the vehicle, the suit said, and Phillips and Hannah drove to the company’s office to get it.
“At Titan towing, they give them a hard time,” Vannah said.
An employee told them the fee had increased to $790 and that they would need to get documents from the DMV to reclaim the vehicle, the suit claimed. She claimed Titan put a sticker on the vehicle before the tow but said they would have to subpoena the company to get proof, according to the complaint.
Because the cost of recovering the vehicle would be more than it was worth, Hannah decided to get his property from the vehicle and abandon it, the lawsuit said. After he approached the vehicle, the complaint said, an employee told him he had to leave and Hannah replied that he just wanted to get his tools.
Another employee ran into the tow yard and also told Hannah that he needed to leave, according to the suit, but the gate into the yard had closed. When it reopened, Hannah left the yard and approached the truck where his wife and daughter were waiting, but the second employee pepper sprayed him, pushed him to the ground and shot him, the complaint alleged.
The suit said the shooter fired at least three bullets at Hannah and hit him twice. The third bullet, which hit Hannah in the chest, “was meant to be an intentional kill shot,” the suit alleges.
Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BrighamNoble on X.