Teenager dies from February gang hit in NLV

Keith Paul

Thursday, April 19, 2001 | 10:57 a.m.

A suspected gang member shot in February by rival gang members died Tuesday, marking the 10th slaying this year in North Las Vegas -- the same number of killings that occurred in the city all of last year.

Robert Valdez, 17, died at 5:52 p.m. Tuesday in University Medical Center. He had been in the hospital since Feb. 18, when he was shot about 1 p.m. in the 2000 block of West Lake Mead Boulevard, said Lt. Art Redcay of the North Las Vegas Police.

Valdez was shot five times, including once in the chest. The shooting remains unsolved.

Detectives have received information that Valdez started a fight during the Martin Luther King Day parade and beat a rival gang member. He was apparently shot in retaliation, Redcay said.

Gang violence in North Las Vegas is the cause of at least seven of the 10 homicides this year, Redcay said.

In a three-week span -- mid-February to mid-March -- four people were killed in North Las Vegas in shootings described as gang related violence. But those killings were believed to involve gangs Valdez was not associated with, Redcay said.

Police responded to the gang-related slayings by increasing the number of officers in the area of Martin Luther King Boulevard and Carey Avenue -- the neighborhood where many of the shootings have occurred.

"We still have our special operations unit working in the area, and we are working with Metro (Police)," Redcay said. "We'll try anything to stop the gang violence, but we can't solve any of these slayings without the cooperation of the citizens."

In each of 1999 and 1998 there were 16 slayings in North Las Vegas. In 1997 there were 11 homicides, 29 in 1996, 13 in 1995 and 22 in 1994.