News briefs for June 11, 2004

Friday, June 11, 2004 | 10:01 a.m.

Meeting doesn't solve dispute

Representatives of Wal-Mart and Clark County met Thursday for talks on an ongoing dispute over a store planned for county land by the airport, but no breakthroughs appeared to be forthcoming.

Commissioner Rory Reid and Wal-Mart attorney Chris Kaempfer met on the sixth floor of the Clark County Government Center. Kaempfer came with a small team that included his associate Jennifer Lazovich and diagrams of the planned 200,000-square-foot store planned for McCarran International Airport's new commercial center at Russell Road and Eastern Avenue.

County officials approved a lease agreement that set the store for the site March 16, but residents and now county officials are battling the decision. Wal-Mart's representatives say they have the legal right to use the site.

Kaempfer did not immediately return calls Thursday. Reid declined to discuss the meeting in detail.

"I met with them today," Reid said. "I've expressed to them what I've said publicly -- that I'm concerned with the application and I want there to be a public (land-use) process."

Efforts to recover body under way

Rescue crews will try to recover the body of a man who fell to his death from a commercial air tour helicopter about noon on Thursday in the Grand Canyon National Park, officials said.

The passenger, whose name was being withheld until his family was notified, exited the Papillion Airways Inc. tour helicopter as the craft returned to the Tusayan Airport on the South Rim of the canyon, park service spokeswoman Donna Nemeth said.

Papillion Airways provides air tours of the Southwest from Las Vegas and Tusayan Airport in the Grand Canyon.

The helicopter had taken off from Tusayan earlier Thursday morning, she said.

There is some speculation that the death might be a suicide, but Nemeth said the investigation is not complete.

The pilot and the remaining five passengers on the flight were shaken by the incident, but unharmed, Nemeth said.

The man left the helicopter near White's Butte, about two miles northwest of Hermit's Rest.

An investigation will involve the park service, Coconino County Sheriff's Office, the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Authority.

Boaters' alcohol use targeted

Boaters sailing under the influence of alcohol this weekend at Lake Mead National Recreation Area may be stopped by law enforcement officials for an "operating under the influence" violation.

An OUI is the boater's equivalent of a motorist's DUI, said Doug Nielsen of the Nevada Division of Wildlife, one of the agencies on patrol this Saturday.

The operation will be based in Callville Bay Marina at Lake Mead, and, in addition to the Nevada Department of Wildlife, officers from the National Park Service and the Arizona Department of Fish & Game will participate.

Last year officers on water patrol checked 270 boaters, and eight were cited for an OUI, Nielsen said. In Arizona the boaters are cited. In Nevada they are arrested, searched, handcuffed and taken to jail, he said.

Man shot in NLV

A man was gunned down this morning as he walked along Civic Center Drive near Carey Avenue in North Las Vegas, police said.

Officer Tim Bedwell, spokesman for the department, said the man was walking along Civic Center Drive just after 1 a.m. when a man shot at him several times.

The man, whose identity has not yet been released, tried to run away but quickly collapsed, Bedwell said.

The suspect is described as a black man about 6 feet tall and 300 pounds. He jumped into the passenger side of a silver 1983 or 1984 Cadillac which fled west on Nelson Avenue. Police don't have a description of the driver.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 385-5555.

Man pleads guilty to time sheet charges

A former senior correctional officer at a minimum security prison camp near Indian Springs pleaded guilty to charges he falsified his time sheets for roughly eight weeks of paid annual leave.

Charles Conners, 45, who worked at Indian Springs Conservation Camp, a minimum security facility with 150 to 200 inmates that is part of the Southern Desert Correctional Center, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit misconduct by a public officer.

District Judge Michael Cherry sentenced Conners to pay a $1,500 fine and $1,500 in restitution.