NLV armed robbery leads to officer-involved shooting

One man was hospitalized and at least one more was on the run in North Las Vegas after an officer-involved shooting Saturday morning.

Officers responded to an armed robbery at the Family Express convenience store at an ARCO gas station near Ann Road and Clayton Street about 3:25 a.m., police Sgt. Chrissie Coon said.

Two robbers were armed with a handgun and a shotgun. They were spotted by officers as they drove away in a white Ford SUV, Coon said.

When police tried to stop them in the 1900 block of Tropical Parkway, near the Clayton intersection, they got out of the vehicle and ran. During the pursuit, an officer shot a 21-year-old man. He was taken to University Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries, Coon said. His identity was not immediately released.

A third person drove away with the vehicle, Coon said. That vehicle might have been found Saturday morning, but police did not specify where, citing the investigation.

Police said the robbers could be linked to multiple valley robberies that occurred in the hours prior to the shooting. Both Metro and North Las Vegas police investigated several areas across the valley that might be connected to the string of robberies.

An east Las Vegas neighborhood on Sky View Drive, about 12 miles southeast of the gas station, was blocked off into mid-Saturday afternoon as police searched for another man and the person driving the vehicle. At least one of them could be armed, Coon said.

A neighbor who lived near the east Las Vegas house that police swarmed around said officers told them about 5:30 a.m. that they would be unable to re-enter the closed-off neighborhood if they exited to buy coffee and doughnuts at a nearby store.

Another neighbor said police on a loudspeaker urged people inside a nearby house to turn themselves in and that officers were not leaving.

They saw more than two dozen officers at the scene. The neighbors declined to give their names out of safety concerns.

Police would not divulge which specific areas were investigated.

No other injuries were reported at either incident.

The convenience store was open for business Saturday afternoon with no signs of police activity. Employees declined to comment.

The North Las Vegas police officer who shot the 21-year-old is a six-year veteran of the department. He was placed on routine paid administrative leave. The officer’s name will be released within 72 hours of the shooting.

This is the third officer-involved shooting in North Las Vegas this year.

A North Las Vegas police officer shot and killed a 34-year-old man after the man pulled out a pellet gun resembling a black semi-automatic weapon during a foot pursuit in July. And a homeless man died in early March after another officer shot him in the head in the backyard of an abandoned home when he became uncooperative.

Review-Journal writers Ben Botkin, Cassandra Taloma and Ashley Casper contributed to this report. Contact Ricardo Torres at rtorres@reviewjournal.com and 702-383-0381. Find him on Twitter: @rickytwrites.