Las Vegas officers honored for meritorious service
In 2011, Las Vegas police officer Patrick Burke was in his patrol car tailing a driver on Flamingo Road whose car was swerving in and out of traffic and had a broken taillight.
The driver was headed toward the Strip and posed a danger to the public, Burke thought.
What should have been a routine traffic stop quickly turned into an action movie scene.
Burke, then 45, stopped the driver, David Paul Gonzalez, 32, using a technique known as PIT. Burke said he wanted to prevent Gonzalez from reaching crowded Las Vegas Boulevard. The man's car was disabled safely at Flamingo Road and Swenson Street.
PIT, or precision intervention technique, is used by police to end car chases. It involves an officer using the front of a police cruiser to strike the rear corner of a suspect's vehicle, sending it into a spin.
When Gonzalez got out of his car, he shot at Burke and his partner. Burke left the safety of his vehicle and started moving toward the suspect to get a clear shot.
Dozens of pedestrians and pedestrian vehicles were in the area, police said.
Burke shot and killed Gonzalez.
Police learned later that Gonzalez had served more than 13 years in prison for second-degree murder in the 1990s.
Burke was one of 18 Metropolitan Police Department officers and 12 supervisors honored Wednesday for going "above and beyond the call of duty," Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie said.
Burke's actions on April 19, 2011, earned him the Medal of Valor.
The awards ceremony was held at the department's headquarters on Martin Luther King Boulevard near Alta Drive.
Burke, who returned to Las Vegas in July after being deployed by the U.S. Army to Afghanistan, Iraq and Kuwait, where he worked as security for a general, said his years of police and military training had paid off.
"Twenty years of training for 20 seconds of work," Burke quipped.
He said things would have ended differently if Gonzalez had pulled over.
"Nobody ever wants to take a life," Burke said. "I would have been really happy if he would have just pulled over and then gone about his business."
Also highlighted at the ceremony was the work of six supervisors and nine officers who were instrumental in improving safety in West Las Vegas under a program called Safe Village, begun in 2006 to reduce violent crime in the historically black neighborhood.
West Las Vegas is generally bordered by Carey Avenue on the north, Bonanza Road on the south, Interstate 15 on the east and Rancho Drive on the west.
Safe Village coordinates with law enforcement, protests violent incidents in the area by handing out fliers and organizing rallies, and works with those convicted of violent crimes.
Members spend weekends going door to door to get input on what efforts can be taken to stop violence.
Contact reporter Antonio Planas at
aplanas@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4638.
