Man with knife killed in home

Friday, Feb. 6, 2004 | 10:07 a.m.

A knife-wielding man was shot and killed shortly after 5 a.m. today after he entered a home near Charleston Boulevard and Christie Lane, Metro Police said.

Another man who had gone into the house in the 5500 block of White Cap Street also was shot but was was treated at a local hospital and had been released this morning, police said.

Metro homicide Sgt. Ken Hefner, calling the incident a "narcotics dispute," said early today that police were getting a lot of conflicting reports about what happened and are sifting through the information.

He said three or four people were in the home when the man with a knife came in.

Hefner said he believes the occupants knew the man with the knife, and this was "not a stranger-on-stranger attack."

Hefner said the occupants of the home are claiming the shooting was an act of self-defense, though police have not yet determined that.

No one had been arrested as of this morning, Hefner said.

Ted Bear, a Las Vegas resident since 1977 who used to live in the neighborhood and was visiting a friend today, said the police statements about the violence being drug-related made sense to him.

"I'm not surprised at all because there's been a lot of drug activity around here in the last several years," Bear said. "There's a lot of meth and pills like Valium being sold."

Bear said the house where the police said the house where the shooting occurred is occupied by a single mother who is on Social Security and disability and three children, two of whom are teenagers.

Ena Abrams, who has lived in the neighborhood less than a year, said there are a lot of children playing in the streets and some police activity but nothing like a murder.

"I grew up in North Las Vegas, where I saw things like this as a kid, but it is abnormal to see something like this here," she said.

"I don't want to say that I am numb to this, but I accept that it happens everywhere."