LAS VEGAS: Officers were checking on a stolen cellphone that its owner traced to a car in Las Vegas when the suspect tried to flee and then opened fire, leading to a shootout that wounded an officer and left the gunman dead, authorities said.
It marked the 15th shooting involving Las Vegas officers so far this year, including seven since June 20. That is a sharp increase from the 10 shootings by police in all of 2016, including seven that were deadly.
The officer wounded in Tuesday’s gunbattle was hospitalized in stable condition with a wound to the abdomen after a bullet missed his ballistic vest, police Capt. Kelly McMahill said.
He was improving Wednesday and is expected to be released within the next few days, Officer Laura Meltzer said.
After the gunfire ended, a second officer realized that he had been hit but not injured, McMahill said during a recorded briefing Tuesday night.
“His gun belt actually stopped a bullet that was fired by the suspect,” she said.
The gunman was shot at least once by police and also had a self-inflicted gunshot wound, McMahill said. The coroner did not immediately identify the suspect, pending notification of family members.
The officers, who also have not been identified, were following up on a report from a man whose cellphones had been taken from a vehicle Sunday and he had traced to a pickup truck parked outside a business in an industrial area.
The suspect initially spoke with the officers, but then tried to start the truck at least twice before pulling a handgun and opening fire. McMahill didn’t say how many shots were fired.
A police sergeant arrived and drove the wounded officer to a hospital. Police said the bullet went through his abdomen and out his lower back.
The officers were put on paid leave pending reviews of the shooting by police and prosecutors.
The recent increase in officer-involved shootings comes five years after the department underwent a first-in-the-nation review by the US Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Services. The voluntary review followed 25 police shootings in 2010. Federal investigators recommended 80 reforms and later credited the police department with adopting almost all of them.
An officer was last wounded on duty in Las Vegas in December 2015, when a veteran patrol officer was hit in the torso and arm while responding to a disturbance call at an apartment complex.
Officers Alyn Beck and Igor Soldo were the last officers killed on duty. They were shot to death while eating at a pizza shop in June 2014 by a man and a woman who later died during a shootout with officers at a Wal-Mart.
Vegas police shootout wounds officer, leaves suspect dead
Vegas police shootout wounds officer, leaves suspect dead
Italian police fire tear gas as protesters clash near Winter Olympics hockey venue
- Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue
MILAN: Italian police fired tear gas and a water cannon at dozens of protesters who threw firecrackers and tried to access a highway near a Winter Olympics venue on Saturday.
The brief confrontation came at the end of a peaceful march by thousands against the environmental impact of the Games and the presence of US agents in Italy.
Police held off the violent demonstrators, who appeared to be trying to reach the Santagiulia Olympic ice hockey rink, after the skirmish. By then, the larger peaceful protest, including families with small children and students, had dispersed.
Earlier, a group of masked protesters had set off smoke bombs and firecrackers on a bridge overlooking a construction site about 800 meters (a half-mile) from the Olympic Village that’s housing around 1,500 athletes.
Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue. A heavy police presence guarded the entire route.
There was no indication that the protest and resulting road closure interfered with athletes’ transfers to their events, all on the outskirts of Milan.
The demonstration coincided with US Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Milan as head of the American delegation that attended the opening ceremony on Friday.
He and his family visited Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” closer to the city center, far from the protest, which also was against the deployment of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to provide security to the US delegation.
US Homeland Security Investigations, an ICE unit that focuses on cross-border crimes, frequently sends its officers to overseas events like the Olympics to assist with security. The ICE arm at the forefront of the immigration crackdown in the US is known as Enforcement and Removal Operations, and there is no indication its officers are being sent to Italy.
At the larger, peaceful demonstration, which police said numbered 10,000, people carried cardboard cutouts to represent trees felled to build the new bobsled run in Cortina. A group of dancers performed to beating drums. Music blasted from a truck leading the march, one a profanity-laced anti-ICE anthem.
“Let’s take back the cities and free the mountains,” read a banner by a group calling itself the Unsustainable Olympic Committee. Another group called the Association of Proletariat Excursionists organized the cutout trees.
“They bypassed the laws that usually are needed for major infrastructure project, citing urgency for the Games,” said protester Guido Maffioli, who expressed concern that the private entity organizing the Games would eventually pass on debt to Italian taxpayers.
Homemade signs read “Get out of the Games: Genocide States, Fascist Police and Polluting Sponsors,” the final one a reference to fossil fuel companies that are sponsors of the Games. One woman carried an artificial tree on her back decorated with the sign: “Infernal Olympics.”
The demonstration followed another last week when hundreds protested the deployment of ICE agents.
Like last week, demonstrators Saturday said they were opposed to ICE agents’ presence, despite official statements that a small number of agents from an investigative arm would be present in US diplomatic territory, and not operational on the streets.
