Gun battle leaves two dead

Cathy Scott

Monday, Nov. 3, 1997 | 10:24 a.m.

A gun battle in the middle of a street across from UNLV left two men dead and Metro Police searching for their assailants.

The shootout occurred just after 8 p.m. Sunday on University Avenue, next to the University United Methodist Church in the 4400 block of Maryland Parkway.

When police arrived, they found two teenagers dead in the front seat of a 1982 Buick. The driver, identified as a 19-year-old who recently moved from the Los Angeles area, had an L.A. gang name tattooed on his forehead, homicide Lt. Wayne Petersen said.

The passenger, a 17-year-old from Las Vegas, also had several tattoos on his body, he said. The windows of the Buick, which was equipped with a chain-link chrome steering wheel, were rolled down.

Both teens had been shot several times "from the waist up," homicide Sgt. Bill Keeton said.

At least 15 shell casings from two different semiautomatic weapons were found in and around the car. The car had gone up a curb and into a fire hydrant, Keeton said.

"When I got there the car was still in drive with the engine running," Keeton said.

Investigators believe two men walked up to the Buick, which had stopped on University, directly across the street from the Alta Ham Fine Arts building, and opened fire. The driver and passenger were armed with handguns, Petersen said, and may have returned fire. The driver had fired four rounds from his gun, he said, adding, "We're presuming it was fired from there."

Keeton suggested the gunfire amounted to "too much action for it to be circumstantial."

"We believe (the gunmen) were specifically targeting these two individuals," Keeton said. "It appears after the gunfighting occurred that the individuals (assailants) walked up to the car to finish these two people off."

Witnesses reported hearing squealing tires after the volley of gunfire. Police were looking for an older pickup.

"We heard shots, then the squeal of tires," said Andy Holtmann, who was standing in a nearby parking lot with several friends outside a restaurant when the shooting occurred.

Paul Baker, another bystander, said: "All I heard was a bunch of shots. I thought it was a line of firecrackers. We looked at each other and said, 'Could that have been gunfire?'"

Two witnesses on the street at the time of the shooting were interviewed by detectives.

Metro's gang unit detectives were assisting in the search for the gunmen, Petersen said.

The assailants, seen by witnesses running east on University, were described by police as Hispanic or white, wearing black jackets, black hats or caps and each armed with semiautomatic handguns. Petersen said there were conflicting reports from witnesses that the gunmen ran away and that they also drove away from the scene.