Inquest probes cop’s killing of motorist

Keith Paul

Friday, Oct. 6, 2000 | 10:56 a.m.

A Clark County coroner's inquest jury will determine today if a North Las Vegas Police bicycle officer was justified in shooting and killing the driver of a car he claimed was accelerating toward him last month.

Testimony started this morning for the inquest into the Sept. 5 shooting of Ernest Williams Jr., 36, of Las Vegas, by Officer Travis Snyder, 26, in a neighborhood under construction in the area of Carey Avenue and Clayton Street.

Snyder and Officer James Miranda were on bicycle patrol in the area -- which had more than 40 reported burglaries -- when they spotted two people sitting in a car about 11:25 p.m. The officers approached them, but Williams drove off, police said.

Williams drove down a dead-end street -- Thunderstorm Way -- with the two officers in pursuit on bicycles. He then made a U-turn and headed back toward the officers, police said.

Snyder, the officer closest to the oncoming car, fired two shots. The officers then avoided the car as it continued traveling through a vacant lot and came to a stop after going over a cement building pad, police said.

The two officers ordered the people out of the car. The woman passenger yelled she had been shot. The 26-year-old woman got out of the car and came to the officers. She had a gunshot wound in the arm, police said.

Williams remained in the car. SWAT officers, who were called to the scene minutes after the shooting, approached the car and found Williams was dead with a gunshot wound in the upper torso, police said.

The inquest jury will determine whether Snyder was justified in the shooting or if the incident should be referred to a grand jury to consider possible criminal charges.