Man charged with shooting up wrong house after puppies, drugs stolen

A Las Vegas man has been charged with carrying out a drive-by shooting on the wrong house in revenge for the theft of his French bulldog puppies, narcotics and a gun, police said.

Trevon Smith, 25, was booked at the Clark County Detention Center on July 8 on 37 felonies in the Jan. 19 shooting at a home near Jones Boulevard and Gowan Road.

A Metropolitan Police Department police arrest report for Smith said a woman was sleeping in her home at 11:19 p.m. when at least 18 gunshots ripped through the house. Police initially tried to discern whether the woman’s anti-Donald Trump comments on Facebook or a thin blue line painted on her home could have anything to do with the shooting, but those theories were quickly dismissed.

Video surveillance showed a silver sport utility vehicle trolling through the neighborhood with lights off at the time of the shooting. Police canvassed the neighborhood and got a tip that the shooting may have been meant for a residence just down the street.

“During the investigation detectives noticed the physical descriptions of the residences were similar and found that aside from different colored garage and front doors, the residences are almost identical from the street to include being the same color,” police said.

Two days after the shooting, a tipster told police that the drive-by could be related to the “unreported robbery of a suspected narcotics house” and that there was also a related shooting “where a large number of rounds were fired at a house.” Police also were alerted to Facebook posts that tagged Smith as part of the case, and detectives learned that Smith regularly drove a silver SUV. Police also examined Smith’s cell phone data, but police blacked out the findings of that analysis in the arrest report.

On Jan. 23, police conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle Smith was in. They located a handgun later linked to the shootings in the vehicle, the report said.

During his transport to jail on traffic warrants, police said Smith made spontaneous comments, including “what was I supposed to do, they took my dogs.”

Police then located various Facebook posts about the shooting, which were “a direct result of Trevon shooting the wrong house … making fun of Trevon for not shooting the right residence and confirming his target before shooting up a female’s house.” Police also found on Smith’s phone photos of French bulldog puppies. Further analysis of Facebook communications showed two other parties discussing the sale of the same dogs with demands the sale be kept confidential because of “how the puppy was obtained.”

Police ultimately determined the shooting targeted the wrong house as an act of revenge over the stolen puppies, a gun and drugs.

“Based on the fact Trevon was upset over his dogs, handguns and narcotics being stolen and sold with his name tagged in the Facebook post for all to see, a sign of disrespect, Trevon was irate,” police said. “Trevon contacted several individuals and spoke about his desire to get revenge on (blacked out) by conducting a drive by shooting at (blacked out’s) mother’s residence.”

Smith is charged with one count of attempted murder and 36 counts of discharging a firearm into an occupied structure. A warrant return hearing in the case is scheduled for Las Vegas Justice Court in August.

Contact Glenn Puit by email at gpuit@reviewjournal.com. Follow @GlennatRJ on Twitter.