Man fatally stabbed outside of Las Vegas convenience store
A man was fatally stabbed at a Las Vegas 7-Eleven on Tuesday evening, according to the Metropolitan Police Department.
A suspect was taken into custody after he made a call to the police, saying he had been shot at, homicide Lt. Jason Johansson said in a briefing Tuesday night.
Metro officers responded to a call about a stabbing in the parking lot of the 7-Eleven on the northwest corner of North Rancho Drive and West Washington Avenue just after 5:30 p.m., Johansson said.
‘A good person’
When officers arrived at the scene, they began to treat the victim, who was in his 30s, Johansson said. The man was taken to the University Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.
Javarreo Donelson surveyed the yellow-taped scene from a scooter, which he rode up and down Rancho Drive. The 47-year-old had been friends with the victim for more than 15 years, Donelson said.
“He loved motorcycles. He loved just to be around people and have fun,” Donelson said. “He’s a good person.”
Donelson, who arrived after receiving a call that his friend had been stabbed, was unable to identify the victim, as he said he had always called him by the nickname “Doobie.”
“He had a hard name,” Donelson said.
When officers arrived at the scene, they received another call from a nearby home, Johansson said. That call came from the suspect, who told police he had been shot at outside the same 7-Eleven.
When officers visited the caller’s home and saw that the man matched the description of the suspect, they took him into custody, police said.
Altercation ensues
The victim and his friend had been involved in an altercation with the man, who is in his 40s, outside of the convenience store, Johansson said. The two friends and the man appeared to be strangers, he explained.
The suspect had been “loitering, possibly panhandling,” outside the 7-Eleven, Johansson said, when the victim and his friend pulled up in a car.
While the victim went inside the store, his friend got in an argument with the man outside. “It becomes heated, at which point in time our suspect charges at the man,” Johansson said.
The victim’s friend then discharged a gun but did not strike anyone, he added. When the victim came back out of the store, the argument ensued, but he soon left with his friend in a vehicle.
Rather than leaving the scene, the pair parked their car on a side street behind the 7-Eleven. They walked back up to the store, Johansson said.
They began fighting with the suspect, and the suspect stabbed the victim, who ran inside the 7-Eleven, according to Johansson. “That’s how we get the two different calls for service,” he said.
The victim’s friend, the passenger in the car, remained on the scene and is cooperating with the investigation, police said.
Johansson said that based on what he has been told, the suspect has no injuries. “We can confirm aspects of the story that he’s telling us, and it appears pretty accurate,” Johansson said of the suspect’s account of the evening’s events.
“Investigators will be out here throughout the night as we continue to do our investigation,” Johansson said. This involves interviewing witnesses who were present, such as store clerks and people who were in the parking lot.
Metro urged anyone with information about the stabbing to contact Metro’s homicide section by phone at 702-828-3521 or by email at homicide@lvmpd.com, or to reach out to Crime Stoppers at 702-385-5555 or online at crimestoppersofnv.com.
Information from before, during or after the incident is helpful, particularly information regarding any interactions with the suspect, Johansson said.
Contact Estelle Atkinson at eatkinson@reviewjournal.com. Follow @estelleatkinsonreports on Instagram and @estellelilym on X. Review-Journal digital content producer Marvin Clemons contributed to this report.
