METRO POLICE
A tenant of the Kensington Suites on West Bonanza Road died Monday, Aug. 6, 2018, after a confrontation with police.
Monday, Aug. 6, 2018 | 8:15 p.m.
An "agitated" man shot and killed by an officer Monday afternoon in a central valley extended-stay hotel became the third armed suspect in 48 hours to die in a confrontation with Metro Police.
In previous, unrelated incidents, another man was shot by SWAT officers on Saturday afternoon. A second reportedly turned a gun on himself later that night after exchanging gunfire with police.
The suspect from Monday afternoon, who was armed with a knife and charged the officer who shot him twice, died at University Medical Center, Capt. Kelly McMahill said. An officer who was cut by the suspect before the shooting was taken to UMC in stable condition, she added.
A complex manager summoned police about 12:40 p.m. to the Kensington Suites in the 2200 block of West Bonanza Road, for a welfare check on a resident, McMahill said. The man had left water running, which was beginning to flood adjacent units.
At some point, the manager had tried entering the man’s unit but encountered what he said was a possibly barricaded door and became worried the tenant was dead, McMahill said. When they opened the door, which was not obstructed, the officers encountered an agitated, screaming man, McMahill said. For several minutes, the officers gave him space, attempting to calm him down.
At some point, they noticed he was holding something in his hand, which he was concealing behind his back, McMahill said. He became “more and more agitated” and an officer discharged a stun gun.
Although the prong struck him in the chest, the shock was ineffective, she said.
That’s when the man began “violently” swinging the knife, at some point injuring the officer, McMahill said.
As officers retreated outside, the suspect followed them to the landing area, where a second officer again discharged a stun, which again was ineffective, McMahill said. Sometime after, the man charged an an officer, who twice pulled the trigger, ending the confrontation, she said.
The deadly spree involving Metro officers began on Saturday afternoon with a suspect who was killed when a SWAT team attempted to end a 16-hour barricade in an apartment at 201 Baltimore Avenue, near Fairfield Avenue, police said.
The man, who multiple times during the standoff fired at officers, was a suspect in a reported kidnapping and rape, police said.
He was fatally shot when a SWAT team stormed the unit about 1:15 p.m., police said. Officer James Ferrante, 35, and Officer William Marx, 48, were place in routine paid administrative leave.
A few hours later, Metro officers exchanged gunfire with a man who'd been linked by the Nevada Highway Patrol to a hit-and-run crash in Searchlight and a subsequent armed carjacking a few miles away, police said. That investigation led Metro to a neighborhood in the 1500 block of Saylor Way, near Jones Boulevard and Vegas Drive.
They'd received a report from there about a "possible suicidal" resident the Highway Patrol linked to the previous crimes, police said. About 10:48 p.m., as officers approached an occupied pickup truck, the suspect fired a round in their direction through the back window, police said. One of the officers returned fire before taking cover.
When arriving officers later approached the truck, they found the man dead from a gunshot, police said. At the time, investigators didn't know who'd pulled the trigger on the fatal round, but today, reportedly, the Clark County Coroner's Office ruled his death a suicide.
