Shooting involving North Las Vegas sergeant in January ruled accidental

A North Las Vegas sergeant accidentally shot a 25-year-old man in the foot during a January traffic stop, North Las Vegas police said Tuesday.

The shooting happened early Jan. 3 while the SWAT team was working a separate barricade incident on the 2200 block of Statz Street, near Lake Mead Boulevard and Civic Center Drive, police had said.

Just before the traffic stop and shooting, the 25-year-old, Phillip Murry, was driving north on the 2200 block of Ellis Street, just west of the barricade, where Sgt. Michael Booker was working a perimeter post.

“We believe that the SWAT operator at one point perceived a threat,” North Las Vegas police spokesman Aaron Patty said then. “He discharged his firearm.”

The man shot was taken to University Medical Center with injuries that were not life-threatening.

“Upon further investigation, the North Las Vegas Police Department has determined that the shot from the sergeant’s handgun was an accidental discharge,” the department said in a statement Tuesday. “The Department is conducting an internal administrative review of the incident which will determine the action taken by the Chief of Police.”

Booker, 40, remains on paid administrative leave, the department said Tuesday. He has been with the department for about 10 years.

On Jan. 18, Murry, filed an excessive force lawsuit against the department.

According to the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Las Vegas, Murry had driven past the police vehicle on his route home from the grocery store and had no prior knowledge of the nearby SWAT activity resulting from the barricade.

“Defendant Sgt. Michael Booker approached plaintiff’s vehicle and within an extremely short period of time shouted, ‘Hey!’ to him, mumbled some other words which were indecipherable to plaintiff and then fired his weapon,” the complaint said.

The lawsuit also suggests that Booker was not aware he shot Murry, saying that after the shooting, the officer “continued to question and accuse plaintiff of acting in a suspicious manner, of crossing a police barricade and made general accusations of wrongdoing.”

The litigation is pending.

Review-Journal reporter Jenny Wilson contributed to this report.

Contact Rachel Crosby at rcrosby@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5290. Follow @rachelacrosby on Twitter.