Coroner IDs man killed by police; suspect refused command to drop gun
A 33-year-old man who fled from a stolen vehicle Thursday night was chased by two Las Vegas officers who together fired 15 shots and killed him as he lifted a gun after failing to obey verbal commands, police said Tuesday.
Iesel Torres Santiago was struck by gunfire while kneeling on one knee and having his hand on a loaded .22 caliber SIG Sauer handgun, according to an officer’s body-worn camera footage shown Tuesday during a news conference at the Metropolitan Police Department headquarters.
Santiago had been a suspect in the theft of a van that police had just located in the drive-thru of a fast-food outlet on West Charleston Boulevard near Rancho Drive, Assistant Clark County Sheriff Sasha Larkin said at the conference.
Police officers used their patrol cars to block the van from exiting the drive-thru at the 1800 block of West Charleston, and Santiago then got out of the front passenger door and fled on foot eastbound on Charleston, Larkin said.
He ran about 300 yards to the rear of a building in the 1700 block of West Charleston with police officers Joseph Bringhurst and Richard Rivera behind him, Larkin said.
“When Officer Bringhurst caught up to the suspect, he was on the ground holding a gun,” Larkin said.
At 9:38 p.m., the officers confronted Santiago, ordered him to step away from the firearm lying on the ground and when he did not obey their oder, and reached for the gun and held it, they opened fire, she said.
Bringhurst, 33, a Metro officer since 2018, shot 11 rounds from his Glock 9mm handgun and Rivera, 28, on the force since 2017, fired four shots from his Smith & Wesson 9mm, she said.
After receiving medical assistance, Santiago was pronounced dead at the scene, she said.
Both officers, of the western community policing division of the Bolden Area Command, were placed on paid administrative leave while Metro reviews the incident, the department reported.
Santiago, who was a prohibited possessor of firearms, would have been charged with attempted murder with a deadly weapon on a protected person, assault with a deadly weapon on a protected person and a prohibited possessor in possession of a firearm, Larkin said.
The van Santiago was in was reported stolen on Christmas Day, she said.
The shooting marked the department’s 10th officer-involved shooting, and fifth fatal one, in 2023, compared with its 14 shootings and seven fatalities in 2022, Larkin said.
Contact Jeff Burbank at jburbank@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0382. Follow him @JeffBurbank2 on X. Review-Journal reporter Mark Credico and digital producer Marvin Clemons contributed to this report.