NLV Police seek teen suspects in shootings

Stephen Curran

Thursday, June 3, 2004 | 10:06 a.m.

North Las Vegas Police were still looking this morning for three teens wanted in connection with two drive-by shootings Wednesday that police suspect were gang-related.

The police started chasing the teens about 3:30 p.m. Wednesday near Jo Mackey Elementary School, 2726 Englestad St., prompting first a lockdown, then an evacuation of the campus, Tim Bedwell, spokesman for the North Las Vegas Police Department, said.

Bedwell said the young men fled toward the school after police stopped their blue Toyota sedan, a vehicle fitting the description of one involved in two earlier shootings on Kings Boulevard that morning. One of the shootings left a North Las Vegas man with minor injuries. He was shot outside a home on the 700 block. No one was injured in a second drive-by shooting on the 500 block, he said.

Witnesses did not provide police names of those inside the car, Bedwell said.

"We're not getting a lot of information from those involved," he said.

When officers attempted to stop the Toyota, the three teens abandoned it in a front yard on the 300 block of Dutchess Avenue, Bedwell said.

The three boys, all of whom were wearing baby-blue clothing, then ran away from police and toward the school. One of the suspects was believed to be armed with a handgun, Bedwell said. Rifle ammunition was also found in the car.

Both shootings are possibly gang-related, Bedwell said. Baby blue is commonly associated with several gangs, most notably the Crips, he said.

"This looks like gang violence," Bedwell said. "There's something going on here but we're trying to find out what."

The approximately 50 students who were at the school at the time of the lockdown were participating in Safekey, an after-school program run by Clark County Parks and Recreation.

The students were kept in a multi-purpose room on campus with an armed police officer, said Brenda Johnson, a spokeswoman for North Las Vegas. Additional officers from the Clark County School District Police Department were on hand to escort parents to their children, Bedwell said.

Stephen Curran

can be reached at (702) 259-8815 or curran@lasvegassun.com