Woman suffers loss of friend killed by officer

Wednesday, May 5, 1999 | 10:01 a.m.

Perhaps the pain is the most severe for Stacy Sabina when she watches her 6-year-old daughter push an empty swing in the back yard.

John Perrin had been putting the swing set together for several weeks, working when he had the time. Before he could complete his act of kindness, Perrin was shot and killed by a Metro Police officer, who told investigators he thought the 32-year-old Las Vegan was going for a gun after being stopped for acting suspiciously.

A coroner's inquest investigating the circumstances of the April 12 shooting by Officer Bruce Gentner will be held Friday beginning at 9 a.m.

"John spent his last $10 for bolts for the swing set," Sabina said. He would push her little girl in the swing as it took shape.

Now Jessica Sabina pushes the empty swing.

"He was really fond of her, and she liked him a lot," Sabina said.

The 27-year-old Connecticut native first became acquainted with Perrin four years ago when he was going to do some bodywork on her pickup truck. Their schedules were always conflicting, but in the process they became friends.

"He was really good with kids. He and a child could sit down and have a good discussion," Sabina said. "He was a good-hearted person, with an outlook like maybe a kid had."

Police investigators said Gentner, a four-year veteran of the force, stopped Perrin in the area of Tropicana Avenue and Rainbow Boulevard on April 12 when the officer determined that Perrin was acting suspiciously as he ran east across Rainbow.

After he was stopped, Perrin reached for an object in his waistband and Gentner shot him five times, according to police.

No weapon was found at the scene, police said, but a small, dark, glass jar with a metallic lid containing a substance used in the manufacture of methamphetamine was found near the victim's body, as was a plastic-wrapped bundle that could have contained a drug, police said.

Gentner, 27, was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of Friday's inquest, according to Metro spokesman Steve Meriwether.

Since Perrin's death, friends and strangers have left crosses, flowers, stuffed animals and other objects at the site where he died. Sabina, a carpenter, constructed a set of shelves that on Tuesday she placed at the site to hold the makeshift memorial.

Sabina leaves flowers there twice a week.

Sabina, who said she talked to or saw Perrin three or four times a week, remembers her friend as someone who had a temper but never took it out on anyone.

She knew he had some drug problems, she said, but he followed her house rules of not using them around her home and her daughter.

"He always respected my house, my rules," she said.

She hopes the memorial will remind people of what she says is an injustice.

"It was totally wrong," Sabina said. "I wonder if this is becoming a communist state. Nobody says anything.

"When my daughter grows up, how is this going to affect her? How safe is she going to feel calling the cops?"

Sabina says she isn't down on police in general.

Her grandmother was a police dispatcher in Connecticut. She remembers growing up around police, wearing their hats when they allowed it.

"I'm not saying all cops are bad," she said. "I'm just saying maybe he (Gentner) was scared. He made a mistake.

"But if you or I made the same mistake, we would be held for involuntary manslaughter. Even if it was an accident, we would be held accountable."