One killed, two injured in apparent altercation

Jace Radke

Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2002 | 9:51 a.m.

One man was killed and two other men were injured Monday night in what Metro Police say appears to be a fight that led to a delivery truck driving through a block wall.

Police got a call of a dispute behind a gas station at the corner of Rainbow and Charleston boulevards about 7 p.m., Capt. Dennis Cobb said.

The first officer to arrive didn't find anything at the gas station, but was flagged down by residents of the nearby Sundance Village Apartments, 6500 W. Charleston, near Lorenzi Street, Cobb said.

"The officer found the truck through a wall, one man dead from obvious physical trauma, and two other injured men," Cobb said. "At this point there are indicators of violence at the scene with the truck going through the wall, so we are treating this as a homicide."

One of the injured men found at the scene was taken to University Medical Center in critical condition, and a second injured man, a 19- year-old, was treated at Valley Hospital and released.

The man who died was identified as 21-year-old Kristopher Gregory of Las Vegas.

Police were watching a videotape made by a bystander of parts of the incident to try to determine what led to the death.

Gregory and the man at UMC were apparently inside the truck, but either got out or were pulled out of the truck and apparently beaten, Sgt. Rocky Alby said.

The 19-year-old man gave little information to police last night, but apparently was not inside the truck, Alby said.

"At this point we don't know if the truck struck one of the people, or if there was some kind of chase," Cobb said.

The truck, which had a Gale Insulation logo painted on the side, looked like a moving truck with about 20 feet of hauling space. It was wedged in a 6-foot-high cement block wall just off the east side of Lorenzi about 500 feet north of Charleston.

The trucks cab broke through the wall that separates the complex from an office building at Lorenzi and Charleston.

Police were attempting to get permission to look inside the back of the truck, and couldn't say what was inside.

Detectives took a group of about 10 witnesses to Metro's homicide unit offices across Charleston from the scene to be interviewed, Cobb said.

One of the witnesses said that she and a group of friends were in the apartment complex parking lot when the truck drove at them for no reason.

"It came close to hitting me and my crew, and then they hit the wall," Erin Brennan said. "Two people in the truck got out and then there was a big fight. They tried to hit us and then it turned into a fight."

Victor and Rita Sanchez, whose apartment is adjacent to where the truck crashed through the wall, said they heard a loud noise and went outside to see what had happened.

"I thought a Silver State truck had dropped one of those big metal Dumpsters," Rita Sanchez said. "It was really loud, like an explosion."