Las Vegas police detective arrested on assault charges

A “road rage” quarrel involving an off-duty Las Vegas police detective escalated when the officer pointed a gun at two people in his northwest valley neighborhood, according to the Metropolitan Police Department.

Detective Colin Snyder, 32, was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of oppression under the color of the law, police said.

He walked out of jail on his own recognizance, and was barred from going to the victims’ house where the alleged incident occurred on May 19 near Buffalo and Regatta drives, Las Vegas Justice Court records show.

“Detective Snyder has faith in the criminal justice system, and intends to vigorously defend himself against the charges,” his attorney, Colleen Savage, wrote in an email.

Snyder lives about 10 houses away on the same street, according to his arrest report.

A woman told police that she was pulling up to her house, when she made a wide turn and hit her brakes, angering a man in a pickup truck driving behind her. The man revved his engine and sped past her, she said.

The incident shook her, and she ran toward his house, but stopped before encountering him and turned back, police said.

She then grabbed a cane and began to pace and tap it on the ground outside her house, police said.

That is when she said Snyder returned in his Metro-issued Dodge Charger, stepped out and pointed the gun at her and her girlfriend, who had gone outside when she heard the ruckus, police said.

The arrest report said Snyder had put on a tactical vest with police insignia after the initial encounter, and allegedly responded, “I’m the (expletive) police,” when one of the women was yelling at the other to call 911.

Police wrote in the arrest report that cameras recorded Snyder activating his vehicle’s siren before he arrived at the victims’ house.

Snyder had told a police dispatcher that the woman had attacked his pickup with the cane, but police determined that the woman never raised the object above her head. Dust on a truck’s dent proved that the damage he had claimed she might have caused had occurred before that day, the report stated.

An arrest warrant was issued Wednesday, and Snyder later turned himself in, police said.

Records show he appeared in court Thursday.

Metro hired Snyder, who is assigned to the department’s theft crimes unit, in 2016, police said. He was suspended without pay while the investigation continued.

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @rickytwrites.