Man’s fatal shooting by father captured on home surveillance video
A high-definition home surveillance video captured Glenn Harris shooting his 30-year-old son in the chest and throat from point-blank range inside the garage of a northwest valley home.
The footage, which was made public this week, does not have audio. It lasts 1 minute and 40 seconds and does not depict a physical confrontation before the gunfire.
On the video, Erik Harris is bent over beside a motorcycle before his 58-year-old father enters the frame. The son turns to face his father, steps between the motorcycle and a dune buggy, and raises his arms before the first bullet pierces his chest through a gray shirt.
Erik Harris then turns his back toward his father before another shot is fired, though it is unclear if the second shot struck him. The younger Harris then bends at the waist and falls to the concrete floor on his back.
The father then can be seen pointing the Springfield .45-caliber handgun at the son’s throat, and the weapon appears to jam twice as the victim’s body starts to convulse.
Sandra Harris, the gunman’s wife and the victim’s mother, told police she heard the two yelling in the garage and ran out in time to witness the second gunshot being fired into her son’s neck after her husband pushed her back. In the video, she looks down at her son, holds her fists to her mouth and appears to cry.
Glenn Harris faces one count of murder with a deadly weapon, to which he pleaded not guilty on Thursday. He has been held without bail at the Clark County Detention Center since his arrest on Nov. 5, the night of the shooting on the 6200 block of Burnt Hills Drive.
The video also shows the older Harris photographing his son’s body with a cellphone after the shooting. He then pulls what appears to be another recording device from his pocket before picking up another phone and speaking while pacing in the garage.
Just before the shooting, Sandra Harris said, she had tried to get their son, Erik, to leave, but he stayed in the garage with his father.
Erik Harris no longer lived with them, she told police, but they would allow him to come by the house during the day.
Metropolitan Police Department officers found the man’s body in the center of the garage with a gunshot wound to his left chest and a contact wound to his neck, just below his chin.
Glenn Harris surrendered shortly after officers arrived at the family’s home, later telling police he’d “had enough of Erik and how Erik had a long history of making threats towards the family,” the report states.
The father’s attorney, Robert Langford, suggested a medical condition could have played a role in the shooting, though he declined to elaborate.
“There is a medical side of the story that has yet to be presented,” Langford said. “And this is truly one of the cases where, if you hear the rest of the story, it will change your mind.”
Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Find @randompoker on Twitter.