Police kill man in hostage incident

Jen Lawson

Friday, Feb. 28, 2003 | 11:26 a.m.

A Metro Police officer shot and killed a 28-year-old unarmed man in the front yard of a southwest Las Vegas home early today after police allege the man held seven children hostage with a sawed-off shotgun.

Just before 4 a.m. the mother of the children called police from a convenience store at Russell Road and Rainbow Boulevard, Officer Jose Montoya, Metro spokesman, said.

The woman said she needed police because a man was at her home in the 7000 block of Rustling Wind with a sawed-off shotgun, Montoya said.

She said she had known the man for about two weeks and had him baby-sitting her seven children "because she didn't have anyone else to watch them," Montoya said.

The woman got into an argument with the man and called police from the convenience store because she did not have a phone at her house, Montoya said.

At least four officers arrived at the house, located in a quiet, middle-class neighborhood, and after 10 to 15 minutes they convinced the man to come out into the front yard.

Officers commanded the man to turn his back toward them and walk backward with his hands up, but he didn't obey police orders, Montoya said.

"Officers didn't see any weapons on him but he made repeated movements toward his waistband," so an officer who thought the man was reaching for a weapon fired one shot that struck the man in the back, Montoya said.

The man had left the shotgun inside the home and was unarmed when he was shot, police said.

The man was pronounced dead at 6 a.m., a University Medical Center spokesman said. The Clark County coroner's office said the man had not been positively identified this morning.

Montoya said the children, who appeared to range in age from about 1 to 12, weren't hurt.

"Our main concern was the children," Montoya said. "Their mother is distraught, but she's happy the kids are OK."

The officer was placed on administrative leave and his name will be withheld for 48 hours, according to departmental policy.

The investigation was continuing this morning with much of the block sealed off by police.

The last officer-involved shooting was Dec. 12. Officer Enrique Hernandez was shot six times after a routine traffic stop, and SWAT officers later shot the suspect after he leveled a weapon at them.