Gunman sentenced to prison for shooting during car chase

Bill Gang

Thursday, May 28, 1998 | 10:26 a.m.

A mild case of road rage by a man blocked from running a yellow light prompted a frustrated bump to the car in front. But that prompted a muttered racial slur from an Oklahoma man which led to gunfire peppered retaliation that nearly killed his wife.

It became a panic-filled nightmare as the man tried to elude his pursuer through unfamiliar streets while his wife sprawled in the seat next to him, bleeding from a bullet wound to her neck.

The Oct. 22, 1997 incident led Wednesday to 22-year-old Otis Tanner being sent to prison for a minimum of 11 years and perhaps 30 years.

Tanner had testified at his trial that it wasn't him, but witnesses to the incident identified the car and testified that he was the man they saw behind the wheel shooting at the car of the Oklahoma couple who had just moved to Las Vegas with their children.

Tanner countered that it must have been someone who looked like him, driving a car like his that was sporting a license plate stolen from his Pontiac Trans Am.

He also testified that the witnesses couldn't have identified him as the gunman in the car because they couldn't have seen him through the tinted windows.

The jury in District Judge Lee Gates' courtroom convicted him on March 6 of attempted murder of the Oklahoma man and battery with a deadly weapon for the gunshot wound to his wife.

It was Charles Southern's use of the N-word which elevated the frustrated nudge in traffic into the nearly fatal situation.

Deputy District Attorney Eric Jorgenson said Southern explained in court that he used the slur for its ultimate shock value rather than as a result of racist attitudes.

The incident began when the man declined to run a yellow left turn light from Flamingo Road onto Eastern Avenue, annoying the driver of a T-top Trans Am, who apparently was planning to make the turn despite the light.

The subsequent nudge resulted in Southern, 35, jumping out to confront the man in the following car, but his wife, Karen, prophetically lured him back with a warning the man might have a gun.

Reluctantly Southern returned to his seat, but not before muttering the slur.

After turning south on Eastern Avenue, Southern said the Trans Am followed just inches from the rear bumper and continued to pursue into a shopping center at Tropicana Avenue.

Tanner's car finally rammed the couple's vehicle and an instant later, a bullet blew out the back window of the couple's car and hit Karen Southern in the neck and jaw. Shoppers scrambled for cover and called 911 on their cellular telephones -- although there were no police units close enough to respond.

Panicked by the gunshots and knowing his wife was in need of medical care, Charles Southern raced west on Tropicana Avenue with the gunman still in pursuit.

Near Maryland Parkway, Southern found the intersection blocked by traffic waiting for a red light and decided to find an alternate route through the parking lot of a plant store and nursery.

But the shortcut that was to be the couple's salvation was blocked by a fence.

They had to turn around and drive past Tanner to escape, weathering a series of shots through the side of his car that shattered windows. As Southern hunched over the steering wheel, one of the shots passed just behind him, lodging in the seat.

Had he been sitting back, it would have hit him, Jorgenson said.

Back on Tropicana Avenue, the light had changed and the couple was able to turn right on Maryland Parkway and finally race to a hospital It was there that the gunman abandoned the chase that had begun a couple of miles before.

Despite the 911 calls and witnesses, it was a week before Tanner was identified as the shooter -- ironically after being spotted by Southern as they drove beside each other along Maryland Parkway.

Tanner was arrested on Dec. 1, 1997 and not long after that, the Southerns moved back to Oklahoma -- returning only to testify against Tanner.

Jorgenson said he originally believed the trial was going to come down to Southern's word against Tanner's. But then the prosecutor learned he had a stack of witness.

Jorgenson explained that each 911 call had been given a separate "event number" by the Metro Police Department and it wasn't until he examined the logs while preparing for trial that he realized he actually had numerous witnesses.

The trial wasn't Tanner's first contact with the court system. Deputy District Attorney Bill Berrett said that Tanner has been in trouble with the law since age 16 when he was arrested for robbery.

Several arrests followed although there were only a couple of misdemeanor convictions, including one in 1996 for carrying a concealed weapon.

But Jorgenson said there also was a 1997 murder charge against Tanner in the shooting death of a man in his car, although Tanner claimed the death occurred during a struggle by three or four men over a gun.

After Tanner had spent months in jail awaiting trial, evidence problems resulted in the case being plea bargained in October to a gross misdemeanor charge and he was freed -- just three weeks before the incident with the Southerns, Jorgenson said.