LAS VEGAS (AP) - A Las Vegas police officer shot a fleeing prisoner who was in shackles when he tried to escape in an unattended pickup truck outside a medical clinic and led officers on a wreck-filled chase before running out of gas near downtown casinos, authorities said Wednesday.
The would-be escapee was hospitalized with a left shoulder wound and no one else was seriously injured by the shooting or in vehicles rammed by the pickup, police Capt. Nichole Splinter told reporters.
The mayhem unfolded about the same time the man was due for sentencing as a repeat felon on charges that could get him life in prison, Splinter said. His name wasn’t immediately made public.
People were interested in these podcasts
A prosecutor and defense lawyer told The Associated Press that court officials told them the 52-year-old man missed sentencing in state court for medical reasons. He had been convicted of armed robbery, kidnapping, battery and conspiracy in an April 2018 case. A judge rescheduled sentencing for Thursday.
The name of the officer also wasn’t made public.
Splinter said the officer was accompanying the prisoner to the clinic for what she described as a routine procedure. He fired three shots, wounding the prisoner once, after the prisoner jumped into the pickup truck left by two men in the medical clinic parking lot.
Splinter said police didn’t immediately think the men in the pickup were connected with the prisoner.
The pickup stopped not far from the Golden Nugget casino and the Clark County Regional Justice Center where the prisoner had been scheduled for sentencing.
The officer was placed on paid leave pending departmental and district attorney reviews of the shooting. It was the seventh police shooting in Las Vegas this year. Two have been fatal.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.