Man shoots NP worker, kills self

Cathy Scott

Monday, March 9, 1998 | 11:37 a.m.

A Nevada Power Co. employee was shot today by a man who then committed suicide as police were closing in, Metro Police said.

The employee was in a truck at Tenaya Way and Farm Road in the valley's northwest when a man walked up to his truck at about 9:20 a.m. and began firing, police said.

Several shots were fired and the employee was struck twice in the side, police reports from the scene indicated. A witness to the shooting, Eric Brown, said he heard the victim giving police the license plate number of the truck the alleged shooter was driving.

Metro Police spotted that truck at U.S. 95 and Lake Mead Boulevard and the alleged shooter drove off the freeway to Smoke Ranch Road, where he shot himself, police said.

The Nevada Power Co. worker was taken to University Medical Center.

Brown, a paver for Central Grading Co., was working across the street when he heard a "pop-pop," he said. He told police he saw a man standing near the passenger window of the Nevada Power truck. He said after the initial "pop-pop," the man fired two or three more times into the truck.

Brown said the Nevada Power employee then gunned the truck and drove away, with the alleged shooter in pursuit east on Farm Road. Brown said the Nevada Power truck was weaving and coasting. He said the alleged shooter then got into his truck and drove onto Tenaya Way from the desert area where the shooting occurred. Brown said the alleged shooter slowed down in front of his crew, looked at them, and then sped off north on Tenaya.

Metro Police spotted the shooter on U.S. 95 near Lake Mead Boulevard. The alleged shooter then stopped near Smoke Ranch Road and Rock Springs Drive, police said, where he shot himself shortly after 10 a.m.

Nevada Power declined to release the employee's name, but spokesman Tom Henley described him as a 20-year employee, 42 years old, with a wife and two children. Henley said he is a "team leader distribution coordinator," overseeing contracted construction jobs.