Las Vegas police say a patrol officer fired seven shots with a military-style AR-15 assault rifle into a car during a fatal standoff with an unarmed veteran.
.
Police released a summary Friday of the events leading up to the shooting just before 1 a.m. Monday that killed 43-year-old Stanley Lavon Gibson at a northwest Las Vegas apartment complex. The shooting has led to calls for a federal investigation of police department practices.
One officer fired the fatal shots "almost immediately" after another officer fired a beanbag shotgun at the window of Gibson's vehicle.
Police say they wanted to break the window so another officer could use pepper spray to get Gibson out of the car, which was pinned with its tires spinning between patrol cruisers.
In a lengthy press release, the Las Vegas police department did not explicitly say the officers shooting was a mistake, and key questions remain unanswered.
Police did not say why an officer felt he needed to shoot into the vehicle, who devised the plan or whether officers knew that Gibson was lost, confused and unarmed. The department's statement said that, Jesus Arevalo -- the officer who shot the rounds -- and another officer have not spoken to department homicide investigators and that "many facts are yet to be discovered."
Gibson was shot in the back of the head and died at the scene.
No comments:
Post a Comment