Las Vegas police share details on shooting involving man wearing armor

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]This is our fifth officer involved shooting in 2026, and this is the third non-fatal.

[00:00:06]At this same time last year, we had two officer involved shootings.

[00:00:11]The location of this incident was near the intersection of West Harmon and South Arville. You can see an overview of the scene to my left.

[00:00:21]The officer involved in this incident is Officer Alex Pena. He's 26-years old, and he's been with LVMPD since 2024.

[00:00:29]Officer Pena is currently assigned to our Spring Valley Area Command, which is part of our Tourist Safety Division.

[00:00:35]He was armed with a Glock 17 9-mm handgun equipped with a tactical light.

[00:00:39]Our investigation revealed that he fired 15 rounds.

[00:00:43]The suspect in this incident has been identified as Mitchell Nettles.

[00:00:48]He's 43-years old, 5'4", and weighs 170 lbs.

[00:00:52]Nettles was armed with a Glock firearm that we later determined was a replica BB gun, realistic in appearance to a Glock handgun.

[00:01:00]You can see a picture of that gun to my left.

[00:01:04]The following are the suspect's charges related to this incident: assault with a deadly weapon, resisting a public officer with a firearm, carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, and trespassing.

[00:01:17]Now, I'll go into the details of the incident.

[00:01:20]On April 25th, 2022 2026, at approximately 3:20 a.m., Officer Pena conducted a person stop on a male later identified as Mitchell Nettles near the intersection of West Harmon Avenue and South Arville.

[00:01:34]Nettles was observed exiting a wash area wearing a black tactical vest.

[00:01:39]He continued across the street just adjacent to a hotel casino property.

[00:01:44]Officer Pena activated his lights on his vehicle to conduct a person stop for trespassing.

[00:01:50]Nettles immediately became confrontational with the officer, and he refused to identify himself.

[00:01:56]He also continued to act in a suspicious and adversarial manner, at which point Officer Pena attempted to place him in handcuffs.

[00:02:04]As soon as our officer approached to make contact, Nettles became completely uncooperative and began running from the officer.

[00:02:12]Officer Pena gave chase, at which point Nettles reached into the back of his waistband and pulled out a firearm.

[00:02:19]As he continued to run, Nettles pointed that gun at Officer Pena, and in response, our officer pulled out his firearm and discharged six rounds towards the the suspect.

[00:02:30]I will now show you body worn camera video of this initial interaction to include the first volley of gunfire.

[00:02:36]Control, 10-80.

[00:02:38]Just keep your [ __ ] hands right here.

[00:02:40]No.

[00:02:41]Can you put somebody back up? No. Back up.

[00:02:45]Get out of the street. Get your [ __ ] hands Back up now.

[00:02:47]Get on the ground. No. Give me Give me Give me your weapon real quick. This dude walked away. He wants to fight.

[00:02:52]Hey, [ __ ] get over here. Get the [ __ ] over here.

[00:02:56]Oh, he had a gun.

[00:03:05]Control, 901, SHOTS FIRED, SHOTS FIRED.

[00:03:09]You know, as you can see in that video, our officers have to respond in split seconds, but and they don't have the the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, but I'll show you two still photos here. One, you can see in the first photo, the suspect is holding the firearm in his right hand, and then you can see in the second photo, he points He turns around and basically gets into a shooting posture and points the firearm at Officer uh Pena.

[00:03:32]After this initial encounter, the foot pursuit continued northbound on Arville and then west on Harmon.

[00:03:38]It appeared to Officer Nettles that the suspect was running towards a large casino property that was in the immediate area, and that he may still be armed and dangerous.

[00:03:47]Officer Pena observed Nettles reaching into his waist area as well as into that tactical vest at different times during the foot pursuit, and at those times, he ultimately engaged Nettles in three additional volleys of fire as the foot pursuit continued.

[00:04:01]Nettles was struck by gunfire, but continued to flee.

[00:04:04]I will now show you body worn camera video of those additional shots being fired. You'll also see Nettles fall to the ground, where he was struck one time before he basically recovers, gets back up, and continues to run.

[00:04:17]He's running He's running northbound on Harmon, OFFICER SHOTS FIRED.

[00:04:27]He's pulling his gun out of me, he's running south.

[00:04:30]He's running He's running uh westbound.

[00:04:34]He's running westbound on Harmon, on Harmon.

[00:04:56]Control, 901.

[00:04:58]I hit him once.

[00:05:00]He's still running.

[00:05:01]I need an action team with me, expedite.

[00:05:11]As additional officers arrived, they formed immediate action team, and they continued to give commands for Nettles to stop.

[00:05:18]Seeing that Nettles was still running towards the casino property, one of those officers deployed a low lethal shotgun, and they ended up discharging four rounds, hitting him at least one time. I'll now play body worn camera video of the officer deploying the low lethal shotgun.

[00:05:46]As you've seen in this video and others, he's continued to disobey officers' commands. He continues to run closer to that casino. At one point, he does shed that tactical vest before he's ultimately taken into custody, but no doubt he was being persistent about trying to flee and move away from officers.

[00:06:01]The following video shows our officers taking him into custody just so you can see a little bit of the custody phase.

[00:06:11]Stay back. Stay back.

[00:06:21]And after that custody phase, we ultimately contacted medical, had them respond, and the suspect was transported to the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries, and then later booked into the Clark County Detention Center.

[00:06:32]Thankfully, no officers or other citizens were injured during this incident, and before I just wrap up the the formal remarks, I think it's just important to point out that the men and women of law enforcement no doubt have a very dangerous profession, but we've also had tremendous success in fighting crime, and if you look at historic reductions in crime over the last year and the last 4 years in particular, part of the reason is because the men and women of this police department are out there at 3:30 in the morning uh looking for persons that are committing crimes or other individuals that are suspicious, and they're taking action when necessary. So, we appreciate their hard work, and I also appreciate all of you being here today. With that, that concludes the formal briefing. Happy to take some questions.

[00:07:10]Yes, sir. Does Does Metro policy call for publishing the officer who fired the less lethal rounds, any information about them or the weapon that was used, the less lethal weapon?

[00:07:22]So, the question is whether our policy indicates uh or requires releasing the identity of the officer that uses a low lethal tool um or the specific tool used. I mean, our policies are pretty open in the sense of what tools we have, like our low lethal shotgun or some other tools like tasers and things like that. We don't generally publish the officer's identity involved in other aspects of the incident, just in the use of deadly force.

[00:07:48]Yes. Hi, I'm Anna Wilson from 8 News Now.

[00:07:50]Um I had a question.

[00:07:52]You guys Our Metro is at, I believe, five officer involved shootings for 2026. It's more than technically more than where we were at last year.

[00:08:01]What are some steps that Metro is taking to make sure that we don't go over or match the number of officer involved shootings from the year prior? I appreciate the question. So, what was asked is last year, we were at a record reduction, and now we're at five, and so what are some of the steps we're taking to continue to make improvements when it comes to reducing officer involved shootings?

[00:08:20]I think the first important point of that is Sheriff Kelly Mayhill made it a priority to reduce officer involved shootings. We worked at it for years.

[00:08:28]But last year, we had a historic low.

[00:08:30]You're talking about a 57% reduction in officer involved shootings. A number of reasons why that success happened to include additional training, improvement on policies, leadership, and better direction to our people, but also our officers understanding the concept that the sheriff has pushed a lot, which is injecting humanity into everything we do. So, there's no doubt we had tremendous success last year, but we also at the same time can't control all of the variables of an incident that our officers are running into. Uh this year in particular, we started off the year, if you'll remember, very early with two officer involved shootings, um and there was no doubt the officers had absolutely zero choice but to use deadly force. The reality we're in in the policing profession is we can't control every aspect of an incident, and our officers carry firearms for a reason. It's to not only just protect themselves, but to protect this community. So, statistically, we may al- may not always be ahead, but so long as our uses of force are the best we can do, and that we find ways to train and improve every time, which we do in these incidents, that's the best we can do. We don't worry so much about each number. We care about each incident and the details of those incidents. I will also just say that um regardless of what the statistics are now, the sheriff and this entire department are still looking for ways to improve everything we do, including our tactics on all incidents. So, we opened our Joint Emergency Training Institute, the Jetty, and that is a world-class facility, and now we're also receiving even more funding from the community to be able to provide more training for officers, you'll start seeing improvements at that point as well.

[00:10:00]Another question I have is, you know, your guys' job as police officers is to protect and serve the community. Do you have any recommendations for the public as far as engaging with police to make sure in this situation with Mr. Nettles, but that you make sure that those interactions with the police are sound and safe?

[00:10:18]So, the question is is there any recommendations for the public to be able to help us provide better public security for not just them, but for the whole community essentially, if I understood your question correctly. Um yes, the short answer is the only way this works in 2026 is we co-produce public safety. In other words, it's not just up to the police department to provide safety, it's up to the public to play a role in that. Um from a very specific individual perspective, obviously we ask for compliance and cooperation. Um and a lot of times you'll see these incidents nationwide and a lot of the commonalities is an individual who is not complying with the officer's orders. Uh even if a citizen believes that there's an issue with the officer's orders, there are other means and mechanisms after the engagement to be able to address those concerns, but just simply resisting or in this case, as we know, uh resisting by pointing a firearm at a police officer, that's not just not being cooperative, that's being deadly towards our police officers.

[00:11:12]Um so, that's absolutely unacceptable, but in all cases we ask um our citizens to comply with those orders. And then for the general public, I think that there's always ways to engage, report suspicious activity, support the police in general. Just this community has always been very supportive. Next time you see a police officer, thank him for their service. As we pointed out here, yeah, we have a young police officer at 3:00 in the morning taking very brave actions to stop an individual he believed was a danger to the community.

[00:11:38]Yes. The um body cam footage from uh Officer Peña shows uh Mr. Nettles, you know, advancing quite a ways before um you know, uh before the officers were able to catch up to him.

[00:11:50]In that span, you see um Officer Peña pointing the his firearm shooting it multiple times while uh the suspect is is quite far away. Is there a certain distance um at which uh an officer is instructed to stop shooting at somebody um or is it because Mr. Nettles had, you know, what was believed to be a gun on him um that they just decided to fire on him because of the risk possibly to the community? Uh thank you for the question. So, they're asking if there's any specific distances, like in this case, it appears that there was a decent amount of distance where the officer was still firing uh his rounds, whether there's a specific amount of distance that the officer should stop firing. The short answer is no, there's not a very specific distance um that they're supposed to uh abide by, but I can tell you this, we're 3 days into this investigation. Um these investigations take a long time and we have Office of Internal Oversight that had that does a tremendous job. It's truly I think it's one of the best and it is a gold standard across the country on how we investigate our officer-involved shootings. They will look at every aspect to include the tactics, the decision-making, the distances and try to figure out are there ways we can improve in the future to keep the officer, the citizen and the community as a whole safer. So, all of that will happen in the months to come, but I will also say that there is fairly established case law that we, unfortunately, after the fact can look at it with 20/20 hindsight and try to question different things, but at that moment in time our officers responding, they have split seconds to make a decision and very limited information to make that decision to try to either save their life or protect the community.

[00:13:20]With that, I hope that addressed all of your questions. I appreciate your time.

[00:13:23]Thank you and have a good day.