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Aug. 21, 2007
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Police suspect links to gangs

Strip brawl involved locals, authorities say

By DAVID KIHARA
REVIEW-JOURNAL

Las Vegas police Monday evening cruise past O'Shea's, on the Strip. Four people were wounded in a shooting in front of O'Shea's early Sunday.
Photo by Craig L. Moran.



A still frame from surveillance footage shows a young man wanted in connection with Sunday's fight and shooting in front of Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville on the Strip.
Metropolitan Police Department

Locals with gang ties are likely to blame for the Sunday morning brawl on the Strip that ended with four bystanders suffering from gunshot wounds, Las Vegas police said Monday.

Police are distributing surveillance video images of some of the men involved in the fight and asking for the public's help in identifying them.


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    • Las Vegas police Capt. Curtis Williams said the department takes security on the Strip "extremely seriously." He predicted the gunman in the weekend shooting and "everyone that was involved" in the melee that led up to the shots "will have charges brought against them."

    Since July, the Strip has seen three cases of gunfire involving more than one victim in each case. No one was killed in any of the shootings, and each of the men charged is a Las Vegas resident.

    About 1 a.m. on July 6, 51-year-old Steven Zegrean opened fire from a mezzanine at New York-New York, wounding four people, authorities allege. Zegrean later told police he was upset that he lost his job and wanted police to shoot and kill him, according to his arrest report.

    Just after 4 a.m. on Aug. 4, 34-year-old Richard Earl Shepherd opened fire at Caesars Palace after he got into a fight with a man who had made comments about Shepherd's sister, authorities allege. Shepherd shot two people who were not involved in the fight, police said.

    Williams didn't draw any conclusions from the recent spate of shootings along one of the world's most famous stretches of real estate.

    "These things are happening all over the valley. It's just not the Strip. The Strip is the one that causes more attention than anyplace else," he said.

    In Sunday's case, about 20 men got into a fight in front of Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville about 3:15 a.m. after two of them had bumped into each other, police said. The men were began throwing punches, bottles and cans at each other.

    During the fight, one of the men pulled out a gun and fired four or five shots toward the neighboring O'Shea's casino, striking four bystanders including at least one tourist.

    The victims suffered minor gunshot wounds to their legs. One victim, a woman from California, remained hospitalized Monday, police said.

    Williams said that because so many people are on the Strip in the summer, during the peak tourism season, the area has three times as many officers as it has during other times of the year. But an increased police presence can't stop all random acts of violence.

    Police will review all of the major incidents that have occurred on the Strip to see whether there are ways to prevent similar crimes from occurring, but such prevention might prove to be very tough to accomplish, Williams said.

    "You can't predict someone that loses a job is going to end up doing something like he (Zegrean) did. You can't predict that someone gets jealous over his girlfriend and decides that the way to resolve this is to put an explosive device (on a vehicle)," he said.

    The reference to an explosive device was regarding an internationally publicized slaying on the Strip three months ago. On May 7, 24-year-old Willebaldo Dorantes Antonio was killed by a homemade bomb in the parking garage of the Luxor resort.

    The negative publicity of high-profile crime on the Strip hasn't appeared to harm tourism in Las Vegas, said Erika Pope, spokeswoman for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. People "continue to perceive Las Vegas as a safe place to visit," she said.

    The LVCVA didn't have tourism statistics for July and August. The most recent visitor tally available is for June, and the 3,282,315 total was about 4 percent more than the total for June 2006.

    Alan Feldman, spokesman for MGM Mirage, which owns Luxor and New York-New York, said the evidence that Las Vegas remains a safe place to visit is overwhelming: Millions of tourists come here and return home safely.

    He said MGM-Mirage's Strip properties have hundreds of surveillance cameras and upwards of 200 security officers each, and those precautions prevent most shootings and many other crimes.

    But, Feldman added, "100 percent prevention is probably an unreasonable goal."

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    rj wrote on August 27, 2007 08:59 PM: The mayor's desire for an NBA team here needs to be stopped. The casinos need to stop catering to the gang banger crowd: the Palms with their rapper concerts, the club in front of the Imperial Palace with their rapper crowd. Forced sterilization of these subhumans should be required, certainly before they receive welfare payments or once they have been convicted of a crime. We need to wake up and see the declining trend that liberals have caused... it may already be too late.


    Will wrote on August 23, 2007 08:12 PM: This whole deal really makes me sad. My Wife and I used to call Vegas our 2nd home. We have been going there since 2000 but our trips have been decreasing in recent just because of this sort of thing. Vegas has been shunning decent people away and welcoming with open arms the dregs of society.


    Hank wrote on August 22, 2007 01:21 AM: Soon we'll have an NBA team and problems like this will be a game day feature.


    Paul wrote on August 21, 2007 08:25 PM: Something needs to be done to discourage these animals from coming to the strip. They are messing with the economy of this town, because if this keeps happening we will see a drop in our revenue.


    Mark wrote on August 21, 2007 05:29 PM: I hope the revolution starts soon; these savages need to be exterminated, along with their protectors in the government.


    J wrote on August 21, 2007 03:59 PM: There is a general lack of respect for society shown by those who gangbang. Isn't it about time we took back control and offered positive influence over those CLOSE TO US, whether they or we be black, white, Hispanic, whatever? There is simply no sense of social responsibility toward our family and friends anymore; if ANYONE of ANY RACE, is acting out like this, it is at least partially put upon their family and friends who have failed to have a positive influence and take responsibility for their own. Once they enter the criminal justice system, it's too late.


    VJ wrote on August 21, 2007 03:48 PM: WE NEED TO ALL OBTAIN CCW's AND RID THE LAS VEGAS STREETS OF THESE ANIMALS.. MAYBE IF THESE ANIMALS FROM CALIFORNIA, AND OTHER STATES.SEE LAS VEGAS IS A PLACE THAT WILL NOT TAKE THEIR TRASH AND FEAR THEM..LET'S KILL THE BASS-TERDS AND RID THE WORLD OF STUPID MORONS.. LESS GARBAGE TO LIVE OFF THE STATE AND TO BREED IN THIS WORLD..


    BG wrote on August 21, 2007 02:58 PM: Danielle- Thanks for your honesty. Now hopefully Metro can do the cleanup work necessary here so all the purps can contemplate their behavior while the do their time in dumb-ni**er-storage. Diversity has ensured that the dreaded "n-word" can now apply to diverse creatures of every ethnicity.


    MainMan wrote on August 21, 2007 02:27 PM: Danielle and Lewisx2 are clearly liberal and by that definition mentally ill and delusional. I suggest that they take some of their little black and brown friends into their neighborhoods, let them suffer the ravages of crime, blight and sexual degradation! We need to get tough and kick some ass now. To let things get worse will result in LV becoming Beruit where gangs run wild and kill each other and innocents with impunity! For the rest of normal citizens we want these lowlifes, vermin gangbangers the hell out of here!


    citizen wrote on August 21, 2007 02:26 PM: we need incidents like this to keep vegas exiting the way the politicians like it ...remember "what happens in vegas (shootings, killings, drugs,dui, prostitution, theft,corruption, payoffs,etc) stays in vegas!!"
    ---the message is clear ...run wild do as you please just keep gambling at the casinos !!!! keep sponsoring crime riddled events like the NBA allstar game....millions of dollars in casino revenue certainly outweighs a few killings and maimings of innocent citizens ....just ask the minxx bouncer whos paralyzed i'm sure he would agree..


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