By Michelle Rindels
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS — Two men were killed and two women were seriously injured Tuesday in a wild Las Vegas crime spree that included a carjacking, two home invasions, a stabbing, a fake hostage situation and a deadly police shooting.
Officers killed a male suspect, and a female suspect was arrested, Las Vegas police said. Their names were not immediately released.
Police said the crimes began about 6:45 a.m., when a man and a woman carjacked a freeway service vehicle that had stopped to help them on the side of the highway. Authorities said the driver of the roadside assistance vehicle saw the two trying to get into a Nissan Altima and thought they needed help getting into their car.
The duo threatened the driver at gunpoint and robbed him of his phone and other personal items before driving to an older neighborhood about 3 miles east of the Las Vegas Strip, police Capt. Matt McCarthy said.
That’s when the suspects forced their way into a home, shot a man and stabbed a woman, officials said. The man was able to call police but later succumbed to his wounds at a hospital, McCarthy said.
While officers headed to the scene, police said the suspects invaded a second house on nearby street and shot a woman there.
The standoff took a turn when the male suspect walked out of the house and grabbed a woman who appeared to be a hostage but was actually his partner in crime, authorities said.
The woman escaped his grasp and officers fired at the man, who retreated into the house. It’s unclear how police determined that the woman was a suspect, but she was arrested.
Officers said the man came outside the house a second time, holding the woman who had been shot. The victim fell to the ground, and officers opened fire on the man, who later died.
The woman stabbed at the first home and the woman shot in the second home were taken to the hospital in critical condition, McCarthy said.
Authorities have not released a motive for the shootings, and it’s unclear whether the suspects and the victims knew each other.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press