Friday, Dec. 5, 2003 | 11:14 a.m.
A Metro Police officer shot and injured a suspected prowler who was armed with a baseball bat and a knife this morning in the gated, guarded community of Country Club Hills in Summerlin, police say.
The officer fired several shots at Melvin Gilchrist, 26, after the man threw a knife and then a bat at him just after 5 a.m., Capt. Tom Lozich said.
One shot hit Gilchrist in the hip. He was treated at University Medical Center and released into police custody by 8 this morning, a charge nurse at the hospital said.
Metro Police responded to a call placed by a resident in the 1800 block of Glenview Drive about 5 a.m. The resident heard a noise and saw a "shadowy figure in the back yard" on a security camera monitor, Lozich said.
Lozich said the first officer on the scene got out of his patrol car and approached the house, and Gilchrist charged at him with a large knife and baseball bat. The officer ordered Gilchrist to drop his weapons, then fired one shot when Gilchrist threw the knife at him, Lozich said.
Gilchrist tried to run away and and the officer again ordered him to stop and drop his weapons, Lozich said. Gilchrist threw the bat at the officer, and the officer fired again, the captain said.
Gilchrist tried to flee once more, but collasped in the street after running about 20 feet. He had a gunshot wound in his hip, police said. Police said the officer did not know which shot had hit the man.
"We are trying to paint a picture of what took place," Lozich said.
The name of the officer involved in the shooting was being withheld for 48 hours per department policy.
As more officers from the Northwest Area Command arrived, they saw another suspicious man standing in a driveway down the street. He turned and ran when he saw the officers.
Police searched the neighborhood door-to-door for the man, using police dogs and an overhead helicopter.
"Whoever this person was, he got out of here," Lozich said.
Gilchrist had no local criminal record, Lozich said. A jail spokesperson said at 10 a.m. that Gilchrist was being booked into the detention center on two charges of assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer. His bail amount was not yet available.
Police said they were uncertain why Gilchrist was in the neighborhood, but it appears he was planning a burglary.
"Common sense would say he was probably trying to get in the house, and the fact that he was armed meant he probably knew someone was inside," Lozich said.
Neighbor Ruthann Gillen, 86, said she heard four shots outside her home just after 5 a.m.
"I didn't see it happen but I heard the shots," Gillen said. "There were three and then a pause and then another one."
She did not look outside until almost 30 minutes later. When she saw four police cars, she went outside. Gillen said she saw a man handcuffed with his stomach on the ground just to the left of her front gate.
The man had some kind of backpack on, Gillen said, and was telling police "they were trying to rob me."
"But he shouldn't have been here," she said. "I could tell from looking at him he was not a resident."
Gillen said she was curious but not frightened by the incident.
"With four police cars and a lot of officers there is no need to be frightened," she said. "I've never heard of any incident in here, no trouble of any kind."
Other neighbors in the quiet, upscale community were somewhat shaken by the incident but saw it as one-time occurrence.
"Absolutely it frightens me," said Cherrie Steffey, 57, who lives just a few houses down from where the shooting occurred. "But we are like any other community: something can happen at anytime."
She said the security in the community was "as good as you can get," but the security at the neighboring TPC Summerlin Golf Course is non-existent. There are no gates blocking access to the course after hours and anyone can gain access and then hop backyard fences into her neighborhood, she said.
One neighbor who refused to give her name said her husband had called police after seeing one of the suspects in her back yard.
This is the first officer-involved shooting in the Summerlin area, police said. There have been 15 officer-involved shootings this year.
The last known shoot-out before this incident ended in the carjacking suspect committing suicide to avoid capture Oct. 24. The man stole several cars, including two police vehicles, got into a shoot-out with police and killed a police dog before shooting himself.
Two Metro officers were injured and one man was killed Sept. 25. Police were responding to a fatal shooting when the 26-year-old suspect, Frank Lyles, shot at them, police said. One officer was shot in the head and the hand and another was grazed by a bullet.
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