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Man, 25, fatally shot in western Las Vegas apartment complex

Updated January 31, 2018 - 10:11 pm

A 25-year-old man was fatally shot during an attempted drug deal Wednesday night at a west valley apartment complex, Las Vegas police said.

Metropolitan Police Department homicide Lt. Dan McGrath said the man was shot about 6:10 p.m. at The Enclaves, 8455 W. Sahara Ave., near South Durango Drive.

The man arrived at the complex with a friend, who waited in the car, while the drug deal took place near a complex pool, McGrath said.

“Then something went wrong,” McGrath said.

The friend heard one gunshot, McGrath said. The friend checked on the man, whom he found with a gunshot wound to the chest. The friend attempted CPR and called 911, but the man died at the scene.

The shooting might have been the result of a drug robbery, McGrath said, adding that the investigation was in its early stages.

“It’s unfortunate that a young man lost his life tonight over a — probably — relatively small drug deal,” McGrath said.

The friend is Metro’s only witness at this point in the investigation, McGrath said. Police are still looking for a shooter who was last seen running west through the complex.

McGrath described the shooter as a black man between 25 and 30 years old, seen wearing a letterman jacket, dark pants and a backpack.

Just after 8 p.m., a woman parked her green sedan outside the complex entrance, got out, stomped her feet and wailed.

“My son is dead,” she sobbed.

As the night progressed, additional members of the deceased man’s family gathered on the sidewalk outside of the complex.

Aside from a suspicious vehicle call Tuesday night, officers at the scene didn’t recall responding to the complex before, Metro Capt. Peter Boffelli said outside the scene Wednesday. Boffelli, who oversees the area between Flamingo Road and Charleston Boulevard and west of Interstate 15, called the complex and the surrounding neighborhood quiet.

“All of Spring Valley is a safe place to live,” he said.

The Clark County coroner’s office will release the man’s identity and his cause and manner of death.

His death marks the 18th homicide investigated in Clark County and the 17th homicide investigated by Metro in 2018, according to Las Vegas Review-Journal statistics.

Contact Mike Shoro at mshoro@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5290. Follow @mike_shoro on Twitter.

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