Suicide leads to closure on busy Blue Diamond Road

Heather Rawlyk

Thursday, Aug. 19, 2004 | 9:57 a.m.

Drivers traveling on Blue Diamond Road at Rainbow Boulevard Wednesday afternoon were forced to either pull over or wait in a long line of traffic because Metro Police thought a motorist on a nearby side street was considering suicide with a gun.

Fearing a passing motorist would be hurt, Metro closed one mile of Blue Diamond -- from Rainbow Boulevard to Jerlyn Street -- and tried to talk to the man.

After about two hours officers opened the door to the black Cadillac Escalade EXT and found the man had killed himself.

"We didn't know what situation we had here," Metro Lt. Tim Leveque said. "We assumed he was armed and didn't know if he was just laying down in the seat, ready to shoot."

Police had received a call from OnStar, a service that offers drivers 24-hour assistance by touching a blue button in their vehicle. The call at 2:05 p.m. said that one of their customers had contacted them from a car and was suicidal, Leveque said.

Officers found the car pulled over on Oleta Avenue at Pioneer Way, just off Blue Diamond Road.

From a distance, the officer could see that the man inside the truck was lying on the seat, Leveque said. Not knowing whether or not the man was dead or alive and armed, the officer backed away from the truck and called for more police, he said.

As a precaution police shut down the road at 2:30 p.m. and SWAT teams rolled in, Leveque said.

Ben Hinson, 29, pulled over his forest green Jeep Cherokee and sat on its roof to get a better view.

"I've never seen anything like this," Hinson said. "I'm trying to get back to Pahrump and I see all these lights ahead. I thought it was a bad accident at first. When I heard the road was shut down for a while, I knew there must be something big going on. It's pretty crazy."

Becki Lawson, 54, sat on the hood of her red Volkswagon Jetta and ate a snack, purchased at the Chevron station.

"I think we're going to be here for a while," Lawson said. "I called my husband in Pahrump and told him I was stuck here and he couldn't believe it. It's really unbelievable. All these teams and all this for one person. Look at all these cops."

After finding the man dead in the car, police reopened the road by 4:30 p.m.

Leveque said Wednesday he did not know how or why the man committed suicide.

"Right now we don't know anything about why this happened," he said. "We can only be glad that no one else was hurt, and that's why we take these extra precautions."