LAS VEGAS (AP) – Lapel videos of Las Vegas police being played during a public hearing on Wednesday a shooting in September 2022 captured the moment an officer was shot and injured at a pre-dawn traffic stop, and the dramatic aftermath when her partner rushed to her side to apply a tourniquet.
Officer Tierney Tomburo, then 24, fell to the ground immediately, returned fire, fatally striking a man who had run away on foot shortly after officers pulled over an SUV with a burned-out headlight near the University of Nevada, Las Vegas , Campus.
Tomburo fired four shots from the ground before dropping her pistol.
“Shots fired, shots fired, shots fired,” a breathless Tomburo said into her radio. She screamed and her body cam tilted up, capturing the dark sky.
Wednesday’s public review came because the Clark County District Attorney’s Office ruled earlier this year that Tomburo was justified in her use of violence and would not be charged in connection with the Sept. 10, 2022 shooting.
Gabriel Charles, 27, of Las Vegas, died in a hospital shortly after the shooting. According to authorities, had Charles survived, he would have been charged with, among other things, attempted murder of a protected person and assault with a deadly weapon.
Police said Tomburo and her partner — identified by authorities only as Officer Dueñas — were patrolling the area around the college campus when they stopped the SUV and asked the three men inside to get out of the vehicle because the driver didn’t have a driver’s license .
Charles, who had been in the passenger seat, got out of the vehicle and first walked slowly around the back of the SUV before running across an apartment complex parking lot. In Tomburo’s lapel video, he is not heard saying anything in the moments before he decides to run.
Tomburo gave chase and within seconds Charles turned to the officer and fired at least once, hitting Tomburo in the left leg and fracturing her pelvis.
Back at the scene of the traffic stop, Dueñas’ video on his lapel shows him handcuffing one of the two remaining men near the hood of his squad car when the shots rang out. Tomburo screamed.
“Bro, make sure she’s cool,” one of the men is heard saying to Deuñas, who drew his gun. “I’m standing right here. I do not go. We have no guns.”
As Dueñas reached Tomburo and had a tourniquet wrapped around his thigh, police sirens grew louder in the distance.
“I got you,” Dueñas said.