Hearing reviews fatal 2015 shooting involving Clark County school police

James Francis Smyth’s loved ones didn’t understand what led him into a fatal game of chicken with Clark County School District police officers in November 2015.

Several loved ones told the Las Vegas Review-Journal last year that Smyth, a Marine Corps veteran and a corrections officer in New York City with an unblemished 23-year career, didn’t have contempt for law enforcement. They said they didn’t understand how something like this happened.

But new facts emerged Friday morning at a Clark County fact-finding review of the incident showing that Smyth had changed in the months before officers fatally shot him.

The county holds a review hearing to share information with the public after the district attorney’s office has preliminarily deemed a shooting justified.

On the afternoon of Nov. 6, Smyth sideswiped a Las Vegas police patrol SUV in the south valley. When the officer pulled over into the shoulder, Smyth rammed the patrol vehicle from behind.

The officer followed Smyth from a distance for about a mile, with Smith running through stop signs and red lights. Smyth pulled into Desert Bloom Park, 8405 S. Maryland Parkway.

Smyth was shot three times by school district police officers Eric Schnaidt and Raymond Cruzan, who were in the parking lot talking to two middle school students about a fight in the park when Smyth barreled toward the officers.

Both school police officers told investigators that they feared the man would hit the students and others in the park. Smyth’s vehicle zoomed past Cruzan, missing him by about 2 feet, and slammed into a parked police car.

There were no signs that Smyth stepped on the brakes in the parking lot.

Detective Brian Kowalski, from the Metropolitan Police Department’s force investigation team, said at the hearing that Smyth’s behavior began to change at the end of 2014.

Smyth battled cancer. His 27-year marriage ended in the summer of 2015. His ex-wife told investigators she found evidence he was using marijuana and suspected he also was using Spice and heroin, Kowalski said. Smyth threatened friends with firearms and began to snap at people.

The former corrections officer had an extremely large amount of caffeine and traces of marijuana in his body when he was shot, Kowalski said.

No one from the public spoke at the hearing. Las Vegas attorney David Fischer, who was appointed as the public’s ombudsman, asked if there was any indication that Smyth’s erratic driving could have been caused by a medical episode.

There wasn’t, Kowalski said.

Contact Wesley Juhl at wjuhl@reviewjournal.com and 702-383-0391. Follow @WesJuhl on Twitter.