Jury clears officer in shooting

They knew their son was dead, and they knew a Las Vegas police officer pulled the trigger.

What the family of Ronald Neal Joseph Jr. didn’t know was why.

So they flew from their home in Lake Charles, La., to sit in a Las Vegas courtroom Friday, hoping to learn more about their 24-year-old son’s last day. As they listened to testimony, Ronald Neal Joseph Sr. held a photo of his son and Janie Joseph clutched the folded U.S. flag that had draped her son’s coffin.

By the end of the coroner’s inquest, the jury had found Sgt. Sara Bradshaw’s actions justified, and the Josephs had some of the answers they came for.

But the one question left unanswered, the one question that never came up during the inquest, is why Joseph Jr., a decorated Army National Guardsman who served in Iraq, was sticking up an old man in a convenience store parking lot in the first place.

The answer to that question was likely buried with Joseph Jr. in Lake Charles.

“If he did what they say he did, he deserved to go to jail,” said Alfreda Bester, a longtime family friend. “He didn’t deserve to die.”

Joseph Jr. had served about a year in Iraq with the Louisiana Army National Guard, and he was honorably discharged in March after seven years of service, his family said. He moved to Las Vegas late last year seeking opportunity in the rap music business.

On the morning of June 6 he called his mother to tell her about his new song titled “Mama Don’t Cry.” That afternoon, authorities said, Joseph Jr. was lurking outside the Terrible Herbst store on Flamingo and Lindell roads in search of a victim.

Robert Gruzdis, 64, stopped at the convenience store and bought four bottles of soda. When he returned to his Ford Explorer, someone came up behind him, pulled out a gun and demanded his wallet, Gruzdis testified.

The robber yanked Gruzdis’ wallet from his pants, grabbed the bag of soda from the car and turned away. By then, Bradshaw, who had responded to a report of an armed man in the area, was already taking aim.

“He turns and looked at me, then he runs at me at full speed,” Bradshaw said. “As he’s running, he pulls up and points the gun toward me. And that’s when I fired.”

She fired three times as Joseph Jr. moved toward and past her.

“I had no choice, whatsoever,” she said.

One bullet hit Joseph Jr. in the left side. The two others lodged in the bumper of a car in the parking lot.

An ambulance rushed him to University Medical Center, but doctors couldn’t save him. An autopsy showed he had a 0.08 percent blood-alcohol content and marijuana metabolites in his system.

Las Vegas police Sgt. Edward Carroll, who arrived as the fatal confrontation unfolded, testified he saw Joseph Jr. running, turn his upper body and point his handgun at Bradshaw.

“What I saw was the beginning of a run-and-gun battle,” Carroll said.

Carroll said he would have shot Joseph Jr. but Bradshaw fired as Carroll was unholstering his weapon. Randy Milmeister, who watched the incident unfold from a second-story real estate office above the convenience store, said he saw Joseph Jr. raise his gun and point it toward Bradshaw.

Gruzdis also testified he saw the gunman turn toward the officer with his gun raised, although he said Joseph Jr. was running away from Bradshaw.

Joseph Jr.’s family was pleased with the inquest process, but they’ll return home with lingering questions about some of the witnesses’ inconsistencies, Bester said.

Three of the eight jurors also seemed troubled by the testimony and refused to sign the verdict form.

Joseph Jr. wasn’t perfect. He had run-ins with the law as a teen, but he was the son of a career Army man who respected authority and the uniform, Bester said. He wasn’t violent and didn’t want to hurt anyone that day, she said. She believed he was trying to escape.

“He was a trained soldier,” she said. “If he intended to shoot somebody, he would have shot them. … I don’t believe he intended to shoot Mr. Gruzdis, and he surely wasn’t going to shoot that officer.”