The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department has released video of an officer shooting a man who was allegedly caught strangling his wife in front of their 10-year-old daughter.
The video begins with Officer David Nesheiwat pulling his cruiser up to the scene in front of a gas station where he finds a man holding onto a woman with a young girl right beside.
Nesheiwat exits his squad car and immediately begins chastising the suspect–and attempting to ascertain the lay of the chaotic landscape before him. He says:
What’s going on? What’s that in your hand? What do you have in your hand? Drop the gun! Got a 413! 413! Sir [inaudible] step away from him! Step away! Step away from him now! Step away from her!
Nesheiwat then radios for back-up and gives his exact location–the Rhino Mart in the south central valley area of Sin City. He continues, “Get down on the ground, get away from her now! Stay over here for me, okay?”
Officer Nesheiwat’s pleas and commands more or less repeat for a while. He issues multiple variations of requests that the suspect put down his gun and get on the ground, while insisting everyone in his line of sight step away from one another. The suspect does not comply and continues to hold onto the woman.
Nesheiwat ultimately pleads with the suspect for just over a minute and a half before firing on him. Four shots ring out as the woman struggles to extract herself from the suspect’s grip.
The man crumples to the ground as the woman limps away–inadvertently hit by a police bullet as well.
The suspect was later identified as 41-year-old Phillip Pitts. He died from his injuries while being treated at the UMC Trauma Center, just west of downtown Las Vegas.
[image via screengrab]
Follow Colin Kalmbacher on Twitter: @colinkalmbacher
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