‘Credibility dispute’: Police officers testify about shooting Black Lives Matter protester

Las Vegas police officers who fired shots at an armed Black Lives Matter protester testified Wednesday that he pointed a rifle at them.

Their accounts are central to the ongoing federal civil trial over the 2020 fatal shooting of Jorge Gomez, who was 25.

“This turns really on a credibility dispute about what happened,” U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware said to attorneys after jurors had left for the day, adding that the two sides in the case seemed to have honed in on the weapon pointing issue.

The trial stems from a lawsuit Gomez’s family filed against the Metropolitan Police Department and the four officers who shot at Gomez: Ryan Fryman, Dan Emerton, Andrew Locher and Vernon Ferguson.

The group fired 19 rounds in less than three seconds and the Clark County district attorney’s office decided not to prosecute them. John Squeo, a detective who fired a beanbag shotgun at Gomez before the fatal shooting, is also named as a defendant in the civil case.

Lawyers for Gomez’s family have said in court documents that “he never pointed a gun at anyone.”

“I perceived that I was about to be shot,” Ferguson testified, explaining his decision-making the night of the shooting.

The officer told jurors he was part of Metro’s firearms training and tactics unit, which teaches officers how to use guns safely and make decisions about exercising deadly force.

In an incident just before the shooting of Gomez, an officer had been shot outside of Circus Circus.

Ferguson said he and other officers stopped near the federal courthouse in downtown Las Vegas to prepare to respond to the scene at Circus Circus. He was at the back of a pickup truck, trying to reach his gear, when he heard the sound of gunshots.

The beanbag rounds reverberated and sounded like regular rounds, he said.

He moved forward, he testified, and could see Gomez running with a rifle. Behind Gomez, he saw a plume of gun smoke and Squeo running and yelling something, he said. He believed someone had fired gunshots and that Gomez was involved.

“Stop! Metro police! Stop!” Ferguson said he yelled at Gomez in an attempt to deescalate the situation.

Gomez turned his head and pointed his rifle at Ferguson, the officer told the jury. He thought Gomez was only pointing at him.

Ferguson said he fired four shots. Before that night, he testified that he had never fired his weapon in the line of duty.

“I thought he was going to shoot at me,” said the officer, adding: “I didn’t allow him that opportunity.”

Locher testified that he heard gun fire, saw smoke and believed Gomez was shooting at officers at the courthouse steps. He saw officers pursuing Gomez, he said, and grabbed his rifle “because there was a shooting in front of me.”

He acknowledged that the smoke he saw was likely from the less-lethal shotgun and said the acoustics of the surrounding buildings likely made the sound sharper than it was.

Like Ferguson, he testified that Gomez pointed a rifle at him.

“I would not have shot him if he hadn’t pointed the rifle at us,” said Locher.

He said he did not hear anyone give Gomez commands before the shooting. Gomez was running when Locher fired his first shot, the officer said.

Locher said he perceived that his second shot hit Gomez.

“I felt that it was a good shot,” he said.

He told jurors he fired three more.

Jazmin Gomez, the sister of the man killed, said during a trial break that her brother has been depicted as “this super soldier” with an “intent to do harm,” but was at the protest peacefully.

“If he was out to hurt somebody, it would have happened before he was walking back to his car,” she said.

Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BrighamNoble on X.