Suspect in Las Vegas road rage shooting spree faces 28 felony charges

For more than a year, a series of road rage shootings within a roughly 5 square mile area in northeast Las Vegas remained unsolved.

Between March 2018 and September of this year, Las Vegas police searched for the armed driver with an apparently short temper and an eagerness to pull the trigger.

Time and again, records show, victims gave investigators the same suspect description: A heavy-set Hispanic man in his late 20s or early 30s with a “full” beard. And in all but at least two of the shootings, the victims told police, the driver was in a maroon or red four-door sedan.

But each time, the shooter sped away before officers arrived at the crime scenes, often leaving behind a trail of spent 9 mm shell casings that would eventually help police link Fernando Mancinas Rebollar, a northeast valley resident, to at least six shootings.

The 28-year-old alleged serial shooter was indicted in late October, about a month after his arrest, on 28 felony counts. The charges range from assault with a deadly weapon and discharging a firearm from or within a vehicle to discharging a firearm into an occupied structure or vehicle, according to the nine-page indictment.

Rebollar pleaded not guilty last week, court records show, despite admitting to at least four of the shootings on Sept. 27, when Metropolitan Police Department detectives served a search warrant at his home and arrested him. He initially faced 21 felony counts.

The shootings

Investigators believe the series of shootings began as early as March 3, 2018, when Rebollar allegedly shot into a one-story house in the 5300 block of Awbury Avenue. No one was injured.

A man who answered the door of the Awbury house on Monday told the Review-Journal that the family that lived there at the time of the shooting moved away about a year ago. A bullet hole just to the left of the front door remained unrepaired.

But according to Rebollar’s arrest report, the violence escalated between August and September of this year, when five of the shootings occurred.

The report states that those five shootings were road rage-related and that Rebollar was allegedly the instigator.

In one of the shootings, on Aug. 17, according to three victims, Rebollar almost hit their car when he ran a stop sign near Christy Lane and Harris Avenue.

In response, Rebollar yelled at the victims out of his car window and shot at their vehicle three times, the report states.

Two weeks later, two victims were stopped near Bonanza Road and Sloan Lane when Rebollar apparently pulled up next to them “and began making comments to the driver, asking where he was from, and making comments toward the female passenger.” The victims are identified in Rebollar’s indictment as Jose Calderon and Ana Arias.

Rebollar then tried to pull in front of their car to block them, but Calderon sped away.

“The victims immediately after heard several gunshots,” the arrest report states.

The most violent shooting

Rebollar’s arrest in September came on the heels of the most violent of the six shootings.

On Sept. 22, Victor Ibarra was stopped at a red light on westbound Bonanza Road at the Lamb Boulevard intersection. At the same time, Rebollar, approaching the light, cut off another car and pulled up next to Ibarra, according to the report.

Police have said that the two spoke briefly before Rebollar fired into Ibarra’s car, striking him in the chest and the arm and causing one of his lungs to collapse.

Ibarra was rushed to University Medical Center in critical condition but survived.

A witness to that shooting provided police with a license plate number. It was incorrect, the report states, but “through investigative means,” detectives tracked down the correct one. The report does not further detail how police identified and located Rebollar.

Five days later, police searched his home and found three 9 mm firearms and ammunition matching spent casings found at the crime scenes, according to the report.

The arrest

After searching his home, investigators asked Rebollar why police might be looking for him.

“He stated it was because of his ex,” according to the report. “He stated he was dating her for 2 years and broke up with her about 4 months ago. Ever since then things have been happening.”

Like a shooting, he said, three weeks prior to police showing up at his doorstep. He said two motorcycles were after him and shot at him.

“Rebollar was advised we were present for shootings that he committed,” detectives wrote in the report.

The report states that he then admitted to at least four of the shootings police were investigating.

He was booked that same day into the Clark County Detention Center, where he remains on $75,000 bail awaiting trial in December.

Rebollar does not appear to have any previous criminal history in Clark County, according to court records.

Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter.