Las Vegas police today are seeking the public’s help in finding a road rage killer who shot a 26-year old dad at a stop light while the victim’s two kids were sitting in the back seat. Right now the police have very little to go on in the rush hour murder.
“All we know is there was some kind of altercation, and the next thing there was gunfire,” Las Vegas Homicide Sergeant Ray Steiber told The Las Vegas Sun newspaper.
Here’s what police do know, according to accounts on My News 3 , and other Las Vegas media outlets: Shortly before 5:15 pm Tuesday afternoon, a Buick sedan driven by Cloettus Harvey was headed west on Tropicana Avenue when it pulled up to a stop light at the intersection of Tropocana and South Rainbow Boulevard, about four miles west of the Las Vegas Strip.
As Harvey waited at the stop light with his two children aged 3 and 2 in the back seat, a dark-colored compact sedan which witnesses said had been speeding and operating strangely pulled up next to Harvey’s vehicle, on the passenger’s side.
“Witnesses told us as that suspect vehicle approached the stopped cars. He was driving in a very dangerous and erratic manner,” Las Vegas Metro Police Officer Bill Cassell told Channel 8 News Now .
For some reason, Harvey and the other driver got into an argument. Police don’t yet know who started the altercation, or what it was about. In fact, they are not yet certain that this Las Vegas murder was the result of road rage. They say there is a possibility that it could have stemmed from some sort of earlier confrontation between the killer and Harvey.
During the heated argument, the other driver pulled out a handgun and fired into the Buick, striking Harvey with multiple rounds.
Harvey must have attempted to escape his killer, because when police arrived at the scene, he had crashed his Buick into two other cars, a Toyota Camry and a Volkswagon Jetta. The suspect’s car drove off to the west, fleeing the scene.
Police found Harvey alive but unresponsive. Paramedics rushed him to University Medical Center where he went immediately into the trauma unit. But it was too late. Harvey was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Officers also found the two toddlers in the Buick’s rear seat.
“Those children have been turned over to the family members. It does not appear that the children were injured in any way,” Cassell said.
The only description Las Vegas police have of the suspect is that he is a white male in a dark compact car which may be an older model.
The Las Vegas road rage murder is the second such killing in the U.S. this month. On January 4, Timothy Davison was murdered in the middle of the night on a Pennsylvania highway. That road rage killing, like Tuesday’s Las Vegas case, remains unsolved.