Officer cleared in shooting death

Jen Lawson

Monday, Feb. 2, 2004 | 9:34 a.m.

A Metro Police sergeant who shot and killed an unarmed man in December told a Clark County coroner's inquest jury Friday that he believed the man wanted police to kill him.

The seven-member coroner's jury decided after about 40 minutes of deliberation that Sgt. Clint Robison was justified in killing homicide suspect Charles Whaley after a foot chase.

Robison testified that Whaley, wanted for questioning in connection with a September homicide, pretended like he had a gun when the officer cornered him in a back yard in northeastern Las Vegas Dec. 16.

Robison told the jury Whaley turned to face him, crouched in a "shooting stance" and moved his left hand as if he was activating a slide mechanism on a semiautomatic handgun. Whaley had been caught with such a weapon two months earlier.

"I immediately hit the ground and yelled at him to drop the weapon," Robison said.

When Whaley didn't, Robison said he fired at him. He testified that he heard a "whizzing" noise over his head and thought Whaley had shot at him.

Detectives later determined the noise Robison heard was a bullet from his own gun that had fragmented and ricocheted inches above his head.

"I was 100 percent positive he had a gun and was trying to shoot me," he said. "I told all the detectives that the weapon was under his body ... Several hours later I was told there wasn't a gun, and I said that's impossible."

An inmate at a state prison testified that when he heard his friend Whaley had been shot by a police officer, he and other prisoners agreed that "that was classic Charles."

Whaley, an admitted gang member, had allegedly told friends that he would rather be killed by police than go back to prison.

Just prior to the shooting, police had pulled over a car in which Whaley was riding to give him paperwork notifying him that a grand jury was investigating him for possessing an illegal weapon. He was also wanted for questioning in connection with the Sept. 30 homicide of a man at an apartment complex on East Charleston Boulevard.

Whaley jumped from the car and ran into a neighborhood near Washington Avenue and Mojave Road, where Robison caught up with him in the back yard of a house.