NHP chief says man posed threat to public before trooper fatally shot him — VIDEO
The man fatally shot by a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper last week was not armed with a gun, but he did pose a threat to the public, the agency’s chief said Tuesday.
Col. Dennis Osborn briefed reporters on the events leading up to the Oct. 19 shooting, which was investigated by the Metropolitan Police Department’s force investigation team.
Troopers began to pursue Javier Munoz, 28, after they saw him driving erratically on U.S. Highway 95.
Speeds during that initial pursuit reached 100 mph before the troopers stopped chasing him, Osborn said. Troopers did not know at the time that the man had assaulted a woman at a gas station near downtown Las Vegas, punching her and stealing her vehicle.
Trooper David Dudley, 57, picked up Munoz’s trail again several minutes later on the freeway near the Boulder Highway offramp and chased him into the area of the Valley Auto Mall in Henderson.
With his vehicle’s front passenger-side tire “disintegrated” from all of his reckless driving, Munoz took a hard left turn over a median in the road and pulled into the Findlay Cadillac dealership’s service station, Osborn said.
Seconds later, after Munoz threw an elderly man to the ground and began to reverse in the man’s SUV, Dudley shot Munoz once. Several people had crowded near the SUV to help the man on the ground.
“That vehicle is a 4,500-pound deadly weapon,” Osborn said. He said that was especially true when Munoz was driving it in a reckless manner and with “a total disregard for the public around him.”
At Tuesday’s briefing, the Highway Patrol played video footage from the troopers’ dashcams and from surveillance systems. Dudley can be see running into the service station and only has a split second to warn Munoz that he will shoot before the suspect begins to reverse and Dudley fires a shot.
Munoz was a resident of Glendale, Arizona, and had been in town for about two days, Osborn said. Munoz had a criminal history in Arizona that included charges of robbery and kidnapping. He was released from an Arizona prison in December.
He died the morning after the shooting at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center. The Clark County coroner determined that Munoz died from a gunshot wound to the abdomen.
The round traveled through the SUV’s open window and hit Munoz in the side, Osborn said.
Dudley has been with the agency for 17 years. He was not injured during the incident and has been placed on paid administrative leave. Osborn said the trooper consented to an interview with the Metro detectives investigating the shooting.
Contact Wesley Juhl at wjuhl@reviewjournal.com and 702-383-0391. Follow @WesJuhl on Twitter.
