Man is stabbed to death outside store

Jen Lawson

Friday, Dec. 17, 2004 | 11:08 a.m.

A chance encounter between strangers at a northeast Las Vegas Wal-Mart Thursday night left a 28-year-old man stabbed to death and a 19-year-old man arrested for murder, Metro Police said.

Police arrested Lauriano Ruiz several hours after he allegedly attacked Cedric Lewis in the parking lot of the store at Nellis Boulevard and Craig Road.

"Sometimes there are occasions where there is too much testosterone and not enough common sense," Lt. Tom Monahan of Metro's homicide section said.

The attack occurred about 10 p.m. Ruiz and Lewis began arguing for an unknown reason, then Ruiz pulled out a knife and stabbed Lewis multiple times. Lewis was taken to University Medical Center where he died.

Ruiz fled in a car, police said. Witnesses gave police descriptions of Ruiz and the vehicle and a patrol officer spotted the car near the Wal-Mart at Nellis Boulevard and Gowan Road.

Ruiz ran from the car when the officer pulled it over, but the other occupants of the car gave police Ruiz's address, Sgt. Ken Hefner said.

Detectives tracked him down a few hours later at his family's home in the 4300 block of Puebla Street, in the same neighborhood as the Wal-Mart, and arrested him on a murder charge.

The incident was not the first time violence started in a local Wal-Mart. In October, a woman was stabbed and wounded outside a store at Tropicana Avenue and Mojave Road. According to police, the assailant followed the woman to her parked car and stabbed her.

Security personnel took the man believed to have stabbed her into custody.

Also in October, another Wal-Mart parking lot, on Rainbow Boulevard near Cheyenne Avenue, was the scene of an attempted murder and suicide.

In that case a woman's ex-husband had been stalking her and shot at her when she came out of the store, then he took his own life, police said. The woman was wounded but survived.

Four months earlier, in June, a man was changing a headlight on his car in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart at Charleston and Nellis boulevards when a man beat him and stole his money, police said.

The victim was on life support but died a few days later and the attacker was charged with murder.

Monahan said the other attacks at Wal-Marts were isolated incidents.

Lewis' death was the 132nd homicide investigated by Metro this year. In 2003, the department investigated 147 homicides.