Officer shoots man to death

Jen Lawson

Friday, April 18, 2003 | 11:21 a.m.

A Metro Police officer shot and killed a man who allegedly raised a golf club over his head in an apparent attempt to beat the officer this morning.

The shooting happened about 3 a.m. in The Pointes apartment, a sprawling maze-like complex of more than 400 apartments on University Avenue at Decatur Boulevard.

Metro Lt. Tom Monahan said a woman called police and said a man was passed out outside her apartment. A patrol officer and a security guard determined that the man was a resident of the complex, but lived in a different building. They took him back to his own apartment.

When they got to his door, the man said he didn't have his key. The security officer left to get a pass key, Monahan said, but the man found his own key in the meantime and let himself in.

The man invited the officer inside, but the officer declined, saying he needed to get back to work, and that apparently upset the man, Monahan said.

He went inside his apartment and retrieved a golf club, then went back out to the second-story landing outside the door where the officer was standing.

"According to the officer, he fired one shot as the man raised the golf club over his head and began to attack the officer," Monahan said.

The shooting victim was pronounced dead at the scene. Alcohol is believed to be involved. The Clark County coroner's office has not released his name, pending family notification.

The officer's name will be withheld for 48 hours in accordance with departmental policy. He has been placed on routine administrative leave.

Donald Christoffersen lives in the building where the shooting occurred, in an apartment beneath the shooting victim's.

"I woke up when I heard a scuffle upstairs," Christoffersen said, then he heard a gunshot. "I thought I better stay inside for a while. I was very, very puzzled as to what was going on."

Christoffersen said he was surprised when police told him who the victim was. Christoffersen described the victim as a quiet Asian man who appeared to be in his 30s.

"He just seemed like a well-behaved guy," he said. "He always nodded when he'd come and go."

Christoffersen often saw the victim's parents visiting.

"They seemed like nice people," he said.

The incident has left Christoffersen bewildered.

"No matter how drunk I'd ever get, I don't think I would ever try to beat up a cop," he said.

This is the third officer-involved shooting this year in Metro's jurisdiction, and the second in which a person was killed. The last such shooting was March 14, when an officer shot and wounded a robbery suspect. An officer shot and killed a man after a hostage incident Feb. 28.

Metro officers shot and killed seven people in 2002 and six in 2001.

A team of high-ranking officers, assembled by Sheriff Bill Young, has been reviewing Metro's use-of-force policy with the goal of lowering the number of incidents in which a suspect is killed or injured. Part of that effort includes training with Taser guns today, police said.