Rival gangs connected to Henderson highway shooting
A shooting that injured seven and shut down U.S Highway 95 for hours Sunday involved members of the Hells Angels and Vagos motorcycle gangs, police said Monday.
Henderson police said they arrested three people in the shooting. They are Richard Devries, 66, Stephen Alo, 46, and Russell Smith, 26.
“Preliminary investigation indicates that the involved subjects are all members or affiliates of rival Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs,” Henderson police said in a press release announcing the arrests.
Police said the Hells Angels and the Vagos were the two groups involved in the confrontation on the northbound freeway at College Drive. Police were called to the scene at 11:50 a.m. “to discover multiple subjects who had sustained gunshot wounds,” police said.
Six were transported to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center with two of those victims in critical condition. A seventh person later showed up at the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries suffered in the shooting.
A Sunrise spokeswoman said Monday that one person remained in the intensive care unit but did not offer updates on the conditions of the others.
The three men arrested were booked on six counts each of attempted murder, battery, discharging a gun at or into occupied structure or vehicle and one count conspiracy to commit murder with deadly weapon.
“The Henderson Police Department would like to give our sincerest of thanks to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department for their tremendous efforts in assisting us with this investigation and helping to bring this investigation to a successful outcome with the arrest of these suspects,” police said.
The shooting provided for a chaotic scene on the highway followed by extensive delays for motorists.
Motorist Andrew Stet was headed south on the highway when he encountered snarled traffic. As he approached the scene, he first saw emergency vehicles and then a man being tended to by medics on the ground. He saw another person, who appeared to have a bloody leg, being treated by paramedics near an ambulance.
At the scene, a few motorcycles were parked off the shoulder, so Stet initially thought there had been a crash, he said, adding that the motorcycles appeared intact.
In 2020, a federal jury in Las Vegas acquitted eight members of the Vagos Motorcycle Club of all charges in a racketeering trial.
The case was centered around the fatal September 2011 shooting of a rival Hells Angels leader inside a Sparks casino during Street Vibrations, an annual motorcycle festival.
Contact Tony Garcia at tgarcia@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307. Follow @TonyGLVNews on Twitter. Contact Glenn Puit by email at gpuit@reviewjournal.com. Follow @GlennatRJ on Twitter.