Tip leads to arrests in early-morning shooting

By Brian Nordli

Thursday, July 5, 2012 | 6:23 p.m.

A tip from a citizen led to the arrest of four suspects with ties to a Stockton, Calif., gang in a shooting that injured four people around 4 a.m. on Thursday at East Twain Avenue and Paradise Road, said Lt. Dan Coe of the Metro Police Gang Unit.

Coe said the gang unit arrived on scene with little to no leads to track down possible suspects, but a citizen came forward with information that linked the victims to the suspects. Detectives were then able to track down three of the suspects at an apartment complex on Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue, Coe said.

“The community in this case was pivotal in ensuring this case got solved,” Coe said at a press conference on Thursday. “We can’t solve gang crimes more often than not because victims are uncooperative and suspects are uncooperative.”

Coe said two suspects gave in immediately, while the third barricaded inside the apartment only to be talked out with no altercations after 15 minutes. The fourth suspect was found at Sunrise Hospital being treated for injuries. Coe said one suspect was a juvenile and the other three were adults.

Coe said the altercation occurred because of an incident between the suspects and victims at a local restaurant a few hours prior. Three of the victims in the shooting were juveniles, and the fourth was an adult. They sustained non-life threatening injuries to their extremities and were taken to Sunrise Hospital, and were later released.

Coe said the victims have no link to any gangs, and that he did not believe it was a gang-related crime.

“This was just one of those events where two groups get together and don’t care for each other and violence occurs as a result,” Coe said.

Coe said the Metro Gang Unit also obtained search warrants and discovered a weapon that may have been used in the crime.

He said the suspects would be charged with one count of attempted robbery, four counts of attempted murder and four counts of conspiracy to attempt murder.