Family of man shot, killed by police speak out: ‘I’m disgusted’
Relatives of a man shot and killed by police in the southeast Las Vegas Valley on Tuesday said they want answers and justice.
“I heard the gunshots. I heard them, and I’m disgusted,” Isabella Durham, 15, said at a news conference late Thursday afternoon outside her family home.
Her father, Brandon Durham, 43, asked her to call the police after a break-in at their home, she said.
“When I grabbed my phone, and I handed it to him, that was the last time I saw my father alive,” Isabella Durham said.
Behind her, the windows of her home were boarded up.
Durham was identified by the Clark County coroner’s office Thursday morning, and his cause of death was determined to be multiple gunshot wounds.
At a news conference Thursday, the Metropolitan Police Department identified the officer who shot Brandon Durham as 26-year-old Alexander Bookman.
Police responded shortly after midnight on Tuesday to “numerous reports” of a shooting in the 6900 block of Wine River Drive, west of Sunset Park and south of Harry Reid International Airport, according to a previously recorded statement given by Metropolitan Police Department Capt. Kurt McKenzie.
Brandon Durham’s family members said on Thursday that the only shots fired on the property were those fired by Bookman.
Once inside, police said, an officer found two people in an altercation, one of whom was armed with a knife. As the officer gave commands to drop the knife, Bookman shot Brandon Durham, police said.
In a previous press release, Metro did not clarify whether the man who was shot was the person holding the knife. In Thursday’s briefing, Metro Assistant Sheriff Dori Koren said that the two people were “struggling over a knife.”
The other person was identified by police as Alejandra Boudreaux, 31. She faces multiple charges, including performing an act in willful or wanton disregard of safety of persons resulting in death and home invasion with a deadly weapon.
Boudreaux was arrested Tuesday and booked into the Clark County Detention Center.
Brandon Durham’s family, having reviewed body camera footage form Metro, said that they believe he was not holding the knife, but rather that Boudreaux was.
The body camera footage shows Brandon Durham, dressed in his underwear, appearing to hold Boudreaux’s arm against the wall. Boudreaux is wearing a red hoodie with the hood pulled up and a black jacket. A knife is visible and being held by someone, the footage showed.
Koren said Thursday that police believe the two had a domestic relationship and that the event was not a random act of violence. Brandon Durham’s family said they do not know why Boudreaux was at the home and breaking in.
‘Give us the answers we deserve’
Lenore DeJesus, Brandon Durham’s mother, spoke outside of her son’s home Thursday afternoon. “What I want, and what I demand, is answers.”
“The police department owes us those answers. Not lies, not made up stories, not things to cover their action. They need to take responsibility for what happened and give us the answers we deserve. We deserve no less.”
Isabella Durham said that her father had always feared the police, and yet even with that fear, he had asked her to call for help.
In body camera footage showed by Metro in Thursday’s briefing, screams for help can be heard until Brandon Durham is shot.
Rachael Gore, Brandon Durham’s registered domestic partner who said she likes to call herself his wife, said that he had been “basically naked, holding onto the door.”
“You call somebody for help. You don’t get help, you get killed. Never in a million years did I think that would happen to him. He was a good man,” Gore said. “The one who calls the police and says ‘help me,’ should never be the one to be shot.”
Gore said a funeral home told her that she can’t view Brandon Durham’s body because it was too disfigured. “We don’t get to say goodbye,” Gore said. “Why did you kill him, Alexander Bookman?”
‘Truly a disservice’
Brandon Durham’s sister, Diane Wright, said that her brother was the glue that held the family together. “His smile would light up the room. His personality was contagious,” Wright said.
Wright called her brother’s death a “wrongful killing,” and “truly a disservice.”
His ex-wife, Ailin Averhoff, said that she and Brandon Durham ended on good terms and remained close friends.
Averhoff said that her ex-husband loved board games, superheroes and the Vikings. When the couple divorced, Averhoff said she chose to leave her daughter, Isabella Durham, with her father.
“It was hard for me, but that’s how good of a man he was,” Averhoff said.
Branden Cinquegrani, a close friend of Brandon Durham, said, “I just want everybody out there to know that he’s not a knife-wielding man in Sunset Park. He’s a good man.”
“Somebody took a bad shot, and his family, his friends and all his loved ones are suffering. In a world where we’re supposed to stay accountable to the law, all of us, they need to stay accountable too,” Cinquegrani said.
Koren said that when evaluating officer involved shootings, Metro determines “what the officer’s threat perception was — what a reasonable officer in that same situation would have done with the information that’s presented to them — without the benefit of 20-20 hindsight.”
“They don’t have the ability to stop time,” Koren said.
Tuesday’s shooting was Metro’s 13th officer involved shooting this year, eight of which were fatal.
Isabella Durham highlighted this statistic. “After awhile, wouldn’t you think to stop pulling out your gun?” she asked.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Contact Estelle Atkinson at eatkinson@reviewjournal.com. Follow @estellelilym on X and @estelleatkinsonreports on Instagram. Review-Journal reporter Noble Brigham contributed to this report.
