Suspect is dead after shootings near Las Vegas leave 5 people dead, teen injured, police say
North Las Vegas Police investigate the scene of Monday night's shooting at an apartment complex in North Las Vegas, Tuesday, June 25, 2024. Authorities have arrested a man suspected in shootings at the apartments outside of Las Vegas that left five people dead and a 13-year-old girl critically wounded. (Rachel Aston/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)
By RIO YAMAT
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS — A man who fatally shot five people and critically injured a 13-year-old girl at apartments near Las Vegas has killed himself, authorities said Tuesday.
The North Las Vegas Police Department said the suspected shooter, 47-year-old Eric Adams, killed himself Tuesday morning as he was confronted by officers in a neighborhood. Authorities had been searching for him since Monday night's shootings in separate apartment units.
Efforts to locate relatives of Adams for comment weren't immediately successful.
Police said initially they found two women dead while investigating reports of a shooting late Monday at an apartment in North Las Vegas. One of them was in her early 40s and the other in her late 50s, according to the department.
While officers were investigating, the department said, they learned a teen girl had been taken to a hospital with critical gunshot wounds and that there could be more victims in a nearby apartment.
Officers then found the bodies of two women in their mid-20s and a man in his early 20s. All five victims had been shot, police said. They weren't immediately identified.
The discovery led to an overnight search for Adams, who authorities had described as “armed and dangerous.”
Just after 10 a.m. Tuesday, police learned that the suspect had been seen at a business in North Las Vegas.
As officers arrived in the area, they saw the suspect with a firearm, running into the backyard of a nearby home. The department said officers followed him, but the suspect refused to drop his weapon and died by suicide.
Police haven't disclosed a motive for the shootings, which they described as an “isolated incident.” A spokesperson for the police department didn’t respond Tuesday to phone and emailed requests for more information.
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This story has been updated to correct that police initially said the suspect was located, not in custody or arrested. A short time later authorities said the suspect had killed himself. The article also has been updated to correct the spelling of suspect’s first name to Eric, not Erick as initially reported by police, and to correct the suspect's age to 47, not 57 as initially reported by police.