Courts
A jury on Wednesday found Wackenhut provided inadequate security at a Walmart parking lot on June 2, 2004, the night retired Air Force Maj. Michael Born was mortally wounded while changing his car’s headlight. Jurors said the security firm must pay more than $1 million in the wrongful death case in which the jury was convinced Wackenhut’s security was woefully inadequate. The same jury held the store was not liable for Born’s death.
Hopes of solving the mystery behind Cole Puffinburger’s 2008 disappearance were dashed Wednesday as prosecutors dropped all kidnapping and hostage-taking charges against two suspects, angering the boy’s father.
Holding a knife, Tory Manvilla raced back and forth through Winnie Ellis’ living room in a panic Tuesday night.
“He was yelling and screaming, ‘He’s got a gun, he’s after me,’ ” Ellis recalled Wednesday at her southeast valley home, site of the first fatal officer-involved shooting of 2011 for the Metropolitan Police Department.
Bryan Yant, a narcotics detective on paid administrative leave since a June 11 drug raid led to the fatal shooting of 21-year-old Trevon Cole, has been reassigned to a desk job at the Metropolitan Police Department. A police official said an investigation concluded Yant violated several policies in connection with the shooting.
A man has died after being shot by two police officers Tuesday night. Las Vegas police Lt. Mark Reddon said the shooting occurred at 8:47 p.m. when police responded to a call about a suspect with a knife.
Child welfare workers have no record of the “pattern of neglect” that led Nye County sheriff’s detectives to arrest a Pahrump woman whose three children were killed in a Feb. 9 fire along with a family friend.
The attorney for a convicted rapist and murderer Norman “Keith” Flowers told Nevada Supreme Court justices on Tuesday his client deserves a new trial, in part because the jury heard that police and prosecutors believe he might be a serial killer.
A judge sentenced Iraq War veteran Joseph Patrick “Pat” Lamoureux on Tuesday to up to 10 years in prison for a shooting spree that left him and a Nye County sheriff’s deputy wounded. Judge Robert Lane said a public defender’s claim that the spree was sparked by Lamoureux’s bout with post-traumatic stress disorder “lacks credibility.”
Judge Gloria Navarro has ordered Cole Puffinburger brought to the courthouse Wednesday in case defense lawyers call him as a witness in the trial stemming from the boy’s 2008 kidnapping. Prosecutors have rested their case against Jose “Miguel” Lopez-Buelna and Luis Vega-Rubio, who are being tried on kidnapping and drug charges in connection with Cole’s disappearance.
