Residents in the northwest part of the Las Vegas valley are fighting plans to put a garbage transfer station at the corner of Ann and the Las Vegas Beltway.

The project also calls for public buildings and a school bus yard. Neighbors are afraid the project will bring problems to their neighborhood, including increased noise.

Residents will meet April 30, Wednesday at 7 p.m. in a ballroom at the Santa Fe station. The meeting is hosted by the Citizens of the Northwest.

The city has also organized a public meeting on April June 10, Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. in the Centennial Hills Community Center.

 

Las Vegas will take over ownership of part of the Las Vegas Wash and begins its plans to create three new parks.

The trust for public land will hand over the deed for the land to the city so renovation can begin. The city used federal money to buy the 13 acres of land along the Las Vegas Wash. The wash is the corridor of land where the city's runoff flows into Lake Mead and right now, it's mostly empty, barren land.

But the city plans to build a 20-mile trail that'll run through of the wash from Floyd Lamb Park to Lake Mead. Along the way there will be three new parks added because the area is currently undeserved with parks.

“The Las Vegas Wash does provide a great opportunity to get multiple uses of the land. It serves primarily as flood control to protect the neighborhoods from the big rain storm events but it will also now serve as a trail that we're developing all the way from the very far northwest down to the wetlands preserve in Clark County,” said Tom Perrigo, city of Las Vegas planning board.

The three parks will built at Washington and Lamb, Sandhill and Owens, and Marion and Harris but there's no date set for construction to begin.

Because the wash is an important ecological resource for Southern Nevada, the hope is the new trail and parks will enhance and protect the wash's ecosystem while providing a recreational experience for locals and tourists.

Metro officers have arrested a suspected burglar and sexual deviant. Now they want you to take a look to see if you may be a victim.

Adalid Hernandez, 33, has been charged with 12 counts of burglary and two counts of aggravated stalking.

Police say he broke into homes, committed acts of sexual deviancy and left behind pornographic materials.

Officers say most of Hernandez's criminal activity happened near Rainbow and Tropicana and that there may be more victims out there.

If you think you may have been a victim, you're asked to call Metro's Sexual Assault Unit at 828-3421.

Metro Police are investigating the possible murder of a man left for dead in a drainage ditch near Tropicana and I-215. Investigators say that man was shot at least one time in the head.

They're trying to determine how he got inside that drainage ditch and who killed him.

Street crews working in the area found the body of a young African American man inside the ditch around 6 p.m. Monday night. Police are waiting on the coroner's officer to come out here to examine the body and remove it.

Metro says the body isn't decomposed. Rigor mortis hasn't set in, so they believe that they are working a fresh crime scene.

Investigators say it is impossible that someone could lift up the extremely heavy storm drain cover and dump a body at the busy intersection in broad daylight. They believe that the victim and his killer were inside the storm drain together when he was shot.

But Metro officials aren't sure how they got down there. One possibility is that they entered from an area similar to this and walked through the tunnels.

“I can't say whether this kid is homeless or not. There are a lot of things you can do down there; people drink, do drugs, but this is a situation that he was clearly down there with the people that killed him,” said Metro Lt. Lew Roberts.

Roberts says there is evidence that other people were in the drain, but they are saying what that evidence is.

They also have possible witnesses, people walking in the area say they heard gun shots about an hour before police got here, but they couldn't tell where the shots were coming from.

Metro police officials have no solid leads but they say they are going to be looking at surveillance video from businesses in the area to see if anything was caught on tape.

Email your comments to Reporter Travell Eiland

Two teenagers accused of killing a Palo Verde student chose not to testify in their own preliminary hearing Friday. But the court did hear what those defendants told police about their role in the fatal shooting.

After a dozen eyewitnesses and three days of testimony, the state has finally rested in its effort to prove there is enough evidence to try 16-year-old Gerald Davison and 19-year-old Ezekiel Williams for murder with gang enhancement.

Christopher Privett, 15, an honor student and freshman football player at Palo Verde High School, was shot to death while walking home from school on Feb. 15.

Various witnesses inside the car named Davison as the shooter and Williams as the driver who sped away from the scene after the shooting.

Friday, a Metro homicide detective testified that Davison, in his voluntary statement to police, talked about having a verbal altercation with the group of kids just before the shooting and how Williams handed him the gun.

Other witnesses have testified that gang signs were flashed and gang terminology was exchanged between the two groups of kids just before the shooting.

Court has adjourned for the day. Closing arguments will be heard Monday afternoon before the judge decides whether these two teens will stand trial for murder.

Prosecutors are calling this a gang-related murder, yet, Chris Privett was not believed to be a member of a gang – but at least one of the kids he was walking with admitted to being part of gang.

Prosecutors have argued that the defendant are affiliated with at least one local gang.

Email your comments to Reporter Alyson McCarthy.

Several witnesses testified Thursday in the preliminary hearing to decide if two teens accused of killing a 15-year-old student will stand trial.

Among the witnesses, were two girls who were riding in the car at the time of the shooting of Christopher Privett. They told the court that after 16-year-old Gerald Davison fired the shots, the driver, 19-year-old Ezekiel Williams sped away.

Read the Gerald Davison Arrest Report

Christopher Privett, 15, was killed in that Feb. 15 shooting near Palo Verde High School.

Thursday afternoon, the three teenage boys who were walking with Privett described what they witnessed before, during and after their friend was shot and killed.

“After I heard the shots, I hit the ground. I looked around. I was laughing at first, because I though it was just a BB gun that someone was just playing a joke on us and then I looked at Chris — and he wasn't laughing. He didn't have a smile on his face. He said, 'I'm hit.' He walked a couple of feet toward us, he fell and started shaking. We turned him over. He stopped talking. I lifted up his shirt and there was a big hole,” said a friend of the victim.

That same friend admitted on the stand he was a former gang member, and he had been flashing gang signs with his friends and exchanging verbal insults jokingly with one of the defendant's girlfriends minutes before the shooting.

Prosecutors believe both defendants are gang members and that the shooting was gang motivated, even though the young victim was not a gang member himself.

This preliminary hearing, which should wrap up Thursday, will determine if there is enough evidence to try the two teen defedants for the young boy's murder.

 Email your comments to Reporter Alyson McCarthy.

The two suspects arrested in connection with the shooting death of a 15-year-old Palo Verde student are in court for their preliminary hearing.

Sixteen-year-old Gerald Davison is facing murder and attempted murder charges. Police say he opened fire from a car driven by 19-year-old Ezekial Williams, who is charged as an accessory to the crime. Christopher Privett, a 16-year-old Palo Verde student, was shot in the chest and died. Privett was walking home from school on Feb. 15 when the shooting happened.

One of the first witnesses was Mandesha Walker, the girlfriend of Williams, who was riding in the car at the time of the shooting. She testified that the group of teens Privett was walking with made gang signs before the shooting. Police say Williams and Davison admitted to police they were gang members. If they are found guilty, they could face a tougher sentence due to their gang affiliation.

Read the Gerald Davison Arrest Report

After police arrested Davison, they say he confessed to shooting at a group of students that included Privett. In his arrest report, he told police he was only trying to scare the students. Davis is being charged as an adult.

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The preliminary hearing is expected to last three days due to the large number of witnesses being called to testify. The hearing starts at 11 a.m. on Wednesday.

In an effort to make sure every child is immunized, there will be a series of free shot clinics during the month of April.

• April 21, Otto Merida Desert Villas, 50 N. Honolulu, 10 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.
• April 22, Martinez Academy of Health, 360 Judson, 9 a.m. - 3 p.m.
• April 22, Helping Kids Clinic, 968 E. Sahara, 4 p.m. - 8 p.m.
• April 23, Wal-Mart Store, 6151 W. Lake Mead Blvd., 4 p.m - 8 p.m.
• April 24, Cambridge Family Health Center, 3900 Cambridge Ave., 8 a.m. - 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. - 3 p.m.
• April 25, Hope Pediatrics, 2255 Renaissance Dr., Suite C,  9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
• April 25, Las Vegas Paiute Tribe Health Clinic, 1257 Paiute Circile, 9 a.m. - 12 p.m.
• April 26, Victory Missionary Baptist Church, 500 W. Monroe Ave., 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.
• April 26, Wal-Mart, 5198 Boulder Hwy., 10 a.m - 4 p.m.

 

 

The search is on for two men who robbed a jewelry store. It happened around 12 p.m. near Cheyenne and Rampart.

Police say a salesman was putting jewelry in his car when one man assaulted him and the other broke the glass out of the vehicle.

The police say the suspects, who took off in gray Mercury Sable or Ford Taurus, got away with about $300,000 worth of jewelry.

The salesman wasn't hurt.

Anyone with information is asked to call CrimeStoppers at 385-5555.

For the third time in a week, a young child has been found floating in a family's swimming pool. This latest incident happened in the northwest part of Las Vegas near Cheyenne and Rampart.

Neighbors say this 6-month-old little boy is at the hospital and doctors were able to find a pulse. They also say the boy's mother is a stay-at-home mom who adores her son. They were alone at their home when just after noon Friday their babysitter arrived and noticed the baby missing.

They found him face down in the backyard pool. That's when neighbors say the babysitter jumped in the pool pulling out the boy. The mother began CPR while the babysitter ran out to the front yard and yelled for help, getting neighbors to call 911.

One neighbor ran into the house to try and help and said it seemed the sliding glass door may have been left open. He then ran outside to help flag down emergency crews.

“Ambulance attendant picked him up and all his limbs were floating down and his head, so they put him down and tried to do CPR and there was no response. So like in two seconds he says let's get out of here,” said neighbor Peter Kurbikoff. 

Neighbors are calling the babysitter a hero for both finding the boy and jumping in to save him. As of right now, police are not releasing the name of the little boy or his family

Email your comments to Reporter Amanda Hernandez.