Officers shoot woman armed with knife

Keith Paul

Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2001 | 9:40 a.m.

A 28-year-old woman stood in front of a Christmas-decorated Las Vegas house Tuesday night holding a knife as her sister apparently begged her not to hurt herself.

A rapid, dramatic series of events that followed ended in an officer shooting and critically wounding Anna Gavigan in the house in the 3800 block of Birchview Court near Tenaya Way and Twain Avenue.

Two Metro Police officers arrived about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday and asked Gavigan several times to drop the knife. Moments later the distraught woman, still holding the knife and threatening herself, ran into the house, followed by the officers.

She stabbed herself with the knife, then came at the officers, Capt. Dennis Cobb said.

"The officers backed up as far as they could until they were against a wall," Cobb said. "One of the officers fired at least one shot, hitting her in the stomach area."

Gavigan was taken to University Medical Center and listed in critical condition this morning. She was expected to recover.

Gavigan has not been charged with any crime, and police have involuntarily committed her to a psychiatric evaluation once she recovers, Lt. Tom Monahan said.

After the shooting about 20 residents huddled outside in the cold, some with blankets draped over their shoulders in the quiet, gated neighborhood, trying to find out why so many police cars were parked in the street. None of the neighbors knew the woman or could recall any problems in the past.

A woman, her husband and child, bearing Christmas gifts, approached the crime scene tape. Once she was identified as another sister, the three were quickly ushered under the tape.

The sister who lived in the house apparently brought Gavigan to her home earlier in the day. The sister called 911 after the woman made threats to hurt herself, Cobb said.

Firefighters were first to arrive at the house and saw the woman holding a knife. The officers then arrived.

"The woman was distraught about something, what we do not know," Cobb said. "The officers went into the house after her to try to talk to her. They felt she was a threat to herself."

When she came at the officers -- one a veteran, one recently graduated from the academy -- they retreated as far as they could until the veteran officer fired a shot Gavigan, Cobb said.

Officers are trained when they shoot to stop the threat, police officials say. That means not shooting the gun or knife out of someone's hand or shooting them in the leg, but to shoot at the biggest available target -- normally the chest.

The latest shooting raises the issue of how police deal with apparently mentally ill people.

The death in January of David Herrera -- a schizophrenic man who was shot to death as he confronted police while holding a knife -- drew criticism from the American Civil Liberties Union, which complained that officers do not receive enough training in dealing with the mentally ill.

The officers in the shooting were cleared by a Clark County coroner's inquest ruling that the death was justified.

While Sheriff Jerry Keller stood by his officers' actions, he also met with advocates for the mentally ill to discuss a new training program for officers to prevent such encounters from escalating into deadly force.

Cobb said the officers are trained to deal with disturbed people, but Tuesday's situation was not comparable to the shooting of Herrera. He said Tuesday night's events occurred much more quickly.

Metro Police have looked at implementing more training for all officers and having specialized officers trained to deal with mentally ill people, like a program in place at the Memphis Police Department.

Memphis Police Maj. Sam Cochran said last month the program is aimed at preventing force from escalating in situations with mentally ill people. However, he said, that doesn't mean that when officers face deadly force they won't respond.

"There are no guaranteed outcomes when deadly force is an issue," Cochran said. "This program doesn't mean we will never have a shooting. You have to use the necessary force to protect yourself and to protect others."

The officers involved in Tuesday's shooting were put on routine paid administrative leave. The officers' names will not be released by Metro officials until 48 hours after the shooting, per department policy.

The officers will remain on leave until after being cleared to return to duty by a department psychiatrist. The officers' actions will be reviewed by the department's use of force board, made up of four citizens and three officers, to determine if the shooting was within Metro's guidelines.

Metro's deadly force policy allows officers to use deadly force to protect themselves or others from what is reasonably believed to be an immediate threat of death or serious bodily harm.