News briefs for Sept. 19, 2003

Friday, Sept. 19, 2003 | 11:15 a.m.

County jail put in lockdown

The Clark County Detention Center is in lockdown until Saturday because authorities discovered five inmates had been planning to try to escape, Chief of Detention Paul Martin said.

Metro Police said they received a Crime Stoppers tip Wednesday that inmates on the ninth floor of the north tower were trying to arrange a jailbreak, possibly with help from people on the outside. The most violent inmates are housed in the north tower.

Officials searched the inmates' cells and found "some things that led us to believe that information was accurate," Martin said, declining to elaborate.

Authorities locked the facility down, meaning no social visits or phone calls were allowed, inmate programs were halted and inmates were confined to their cells. A complete search of the building was conducted to make sure no contraband was brought in.

Martin said he wouldn't release the names of the inmates involved until the investigation is complete. Several non-inmates may also be charged.

No inmates have ever escaped from the detention center, Martin said.

Girl run over by SUV improves

A 2-year-old girl who was run over by her family's sport utility vehicle Tuesday in North Las Vegas was upgraded from critical to serious condition Thursday afternoon, police said.

The girl's mother was loading her 4-year-old son into the vehicle and he apparently jostled the gear shift into neutral, police said. The vehicle rolled backwards down the driveway, and the right rear tire rolled over the girl's head, police said.

Police called the incident a tragic accident and said criminal charges are not likely to be filed.

Head trauma killed worker

A man who was killed Wednesday while working on a water line in Henderson died of blunt head trauma, the Clark County coroner's office said.

The investigation into the death of Luigi Conti, 56, of Switzerland is being handled by the Occupational Safety and Health Enforcement Section.

They are refusing to provide more information about what happened to Conti.

Woman found in storage bin ID'd

A woman found dead inside a plastic storage bin near Sunrise Mountain early Wednesday has been identified as 22-year-old Janine Carol Edwards of Las Vegas, the coroner's office said.

The container was discovered in the desert south of Vegas Valley Drive and west of Hollywood Boulevard. Edwards was wrapped in bedding, Metro Police said.

Investigators had not determined the cause of death this morning.

Subcritical test is postponed

The subcritical experiment that had been scheduled for Thursday at the Nevada Test Site was postponed today due to a technical problem, the National Nuclear Security Administration announced Thursday.

The experiment, named Piano, will be the 20th subcritical experiment conducted at the test site.

Subcritical experiments involve exposing tiny amounts of nuclear materials to high explosives. The resulting blast stops short of producing a nuclear chain reaction. Subcritical experiments allow scientists to study how plutonium and other radioactive materials behave when detonated with explosives.

Fugitive from Indiana arrested

An Indiana man wanted in connection with a warrant that charges him with stalking and terroristic threats was arrested on the Strip Thursday afternoon by a fugitive task force led by U.S. marshals.

Robert Ray Diaz, 38, was arrested near the Fashion Show mall about 2:30 p.m. and was being held at the Clark County Detention Center pending extradition to Indiana.

Police allege Diaz stalked his ex-girlfriend and her family in Hamilton County, Ind., and threatened them with guns and pipe bombs. According to Diaz's warrant, he once made 162 phone calls to his ex-girlfriend's brother's home in one day.

Diaz is also charged with threatening to send a pipe bomb in a pizza box to a police investigator working on his case, a spokesman with the marshals' office in Las Vegas said.