Published Thursday, Dec. 12, 2019 | 8:30 p.m.
Updated Friday, Dec. 13, 2019 | 4:04 p.m.
Dwight Delancy
Obscene gestures flashed by an off-duty Metro Police officer during a road dispute were interpreted as a threat by a motorist who then opened fire on him, according to his arrest report.
In custody after crashing into another motorist’s car on Interstate 15, Dwight Delancy, 21, told another cop that the dispute escalated when the officer tried to run him off the road on Blue Diamond Road.
Additionally, the officer — who was driving his personal vehicle and wearing a civilian T-shirt — looked “ghetto” and like a “gangster” so “he pulled out his firearm and fired at him,” said Delancy, who’d thought the hand gestures signaled a desire to fight.
Both vehicles were turning from southbound Las Vegas Boulevard onto Blue Diamond when Delancy — who was on the officer’s left side — apparently tried to cut him off, the officer told investigators.
Delancy, the officer said, slowed down, got behind him, and then sped up, pulling next to him, now on his right side, according to the report.
An animated Delancy, now waving his arms, “appeared to be screaming something which he could not hear,” the officer told investigators.
The officer saw this as a “road rage incident” and the driver being angry at him, so he responded with the same, “gesturing with his hands in a '(expletive) you' fashion,” he said.
That’s when Delancy allegedly flashed a shiny object the officer didn’t recognize as a gun until he heard a “pop” and saw a flash, police said. The officer said the gun was pointed at him when it went off several more times.
Delancy then took off, driving recklessly onto the freeway with the officer following, reporting the incident to police at 3:43 p.m., Metro logs show.
Delancy plowed into a car on the freeway near Russell Road and was held at gunpoint by the officer until authorities arrived and handcuffed both of them, police said.
Delancy later told detectives he fired one round into the air “as a way of warning” the motorist, who he felt threatened by, police said.
Detectives were only able to recover one spent bullet, according to the report. The officer’s vehicle was not struck.
Delancy was booked at the Clark County Detention Center on one count of assault with a deadly weapon and two counts of discharging a gun into an occupied vehicle, jail logs show. He’s also being held on a fugitive warrant from Broward County, Florida, according to the report.
