Las Vegas Road Rage Update: Police Apprehend Suspect
Tammy Meyers was shot after a confrontation while driving. After four days, police have made an arrest.
In this Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2015, photo, Robert Meyers, left, receives a hug during a candlelight vigil for his wife, Tammy, who was taken off life support on Saturday after a shooting in Las Vegas. What police first described as a road rage-inspired shooting of an innocent mother of four has morphed into a more complex scenario, prompting a backlash Wednesday against the Las Vegas family and the way the case is being handled.
L.E. Baskow/AP
LAS VEGAS
A suspect in the road-rage killing of a Las Vegas mother of four was arrested on Thursday after police descended on a home not far from the scene of the shooting, law enforcement officials said.
A Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department spokesman declined to identify the man taken into custody in connection with the shooting death of 44-year-old Tammy Meyers last week.
Meyers died on Saturday after being taken off life support at a Las Vegas hospital.
Officers had surrounded the home where the suspect was arrested earlier on Thursday, saying they were attempting in a "tactical phase" to take him into custody. Neighbors told CNN that officers were addressing someone named "Eric" through loudspeakers.
Las Vegas police declined to say if they believed the suspect they had arrested at the home was the person who opened fire on Meyers from a silver or gray four-door sedan. Witnesses have said that there may have been three people in that car at the time of the confrontation.
According to Las Vegas police Lieutenant Ray Steiber, who spoke to reporters at a news conference earlier this week, the incident began around 11:20 p.m. on Feb. 12 when the silver sedan sped alongside Meyers as she drove home after giving her 15-year-old daughter a driving lesson.
After Meyers' daughter reached over from the passenger side and honked at the speeding car, a suspect described by police as a white man in his 20s or early 30s got out and yelled at them, Steiber told the news conference.
Meyers sped away and drove home, where her daughter got out of the car and her son got in, carrying a loaded handgun, Steiber said.
Mother and son drove through the neighborhood in search of the other car and driver but, after failing to find them, returned home, only to have the suspect vehicle arrive and open fire on them, according to Steiber.
Meyers' son returned fire, Steiber said, and discovered his mother had been shot as the suspect vehicle fled.
Police released a composite sketch of the man who confronted Meyers and her daughter. Neighbors told CNN that the man taken into custody did not appear to match that drawing.
(Reporting by Alexia Shurmur in Las Vegas and Alex Dobuzinskis and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Peter Cooney and Eric Walsh)