Officer at coroner’s inquest: Two shots not enough

Jen Lawson

Monday, Jan. 31, 2005 | 8:58 a.m.

After a whack with a baton on the thigh, a zap with a Taser gun and two bullets shot into his body, 21-year-old Aquileo Jiminez-Duran kept charging at Metro Police Officer Jon David, the officer testified at a coroner's inquest.

It took a third shot to stop Jiminez-Duran. Jimenez-Duran apparently had to be killed to be stopped, David said.

The coroner's inquest jury agreed, ruling Friday that David was justified when he killed Jiminez-Duran in the parking lot of the Fashion Show on Dec. 26.

The jury had heard testimony from Citizen Area Transit bus driver David Ybarra about how he had been stopped outside the mall when a man ran up to him and said someone was trying to break into his car. Ybarra looked in the lot and saw a man shatter a car window. Ybarra called 911.

David arrived and confronted the alleged would-be thief, Jiminez-Duran, but he ran from the officer, heading south through the lot toward the Las Vegas Strip.

David was chasing him when Jiminez-Duran suddenly stopped, turned around and punched him in the face, David said. The officer pulled out his baton and hit him once on the upper thigh.

"Instead of stopping or giving up, he charged me," David told the jury.

David turned and ran, he said, and Jiminez-Duran chased him for a distance before David turned, dropped his baton and grabbed his Taser gun. The electrically-charged prongs stuck in Jiminez-Duran's chest and he screamed, but he barely paused. One of the prongs fell out, and he came at the officer again.

The officer continued running, he said. Jiminez-Duran reached down and picked up David's discarded baton and held it over his head like a hatchet, David testified. David said the man was swinging at him, and he was ducking as he ran from him.

When the chase entered a construction area, David said he pulled out his gun and told Jiminez-Duran to stop or he'd shoot. Jiminez-Duran kept charging toward the officer with the baton, David said, but instead of shooting he turned and again started running from him.

Then, David said, he stopped, pivoted and fired a shot from four or five feet away, hitting Jiminez-Duran in the abdomen. David said he saw the front of the Jimenez-Duran's white tank top turn red.

Jiminez-Duran screamed and fell to the ground -- but then popped right back up, still swinging the baton, David said. David said he ran about 12 feet, then he turned and shot him again.

"He did the exact same thing -- he screamed, fell and got up," David said.

David turned and ran again, then stopped, turned and fired once more. Jiminez-Duran let out a quick yell, collapsed, then sat up, still holding the baton, then collapsed a final time. He was pronounced dead at University Medical Center.

"He was trying to use deadly force on me, and I was just trying to defend myself," David said.

Ybarra, a passenger on the bus and a passerby all gave testimony matching David's description -- that Jiminez-Duran kept coming at David with a baton in his hand.

Dr. Lary Simms, a medical examiner with the Clark County coroner's office, said Jiminez-Duran was shot in the pelvis, abdomen and chest. Simms said Jiminez-Duran had methamphetamine in his system "at levels that could make someone very agitated," he said.