He Admitted to Firing: Las Vegas Freeway Police Footage —"My Kid Is Dead."

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:10]This is Tyler Jones, a 22-year-old driver on a Las Vegas freeway. Right now, he is telling police that he fired the shot, but he has not yet processed where that bullet went.

[00:00:49]The officer who pulled up to this scene was not responding to the shooting.

[00:00:54]He was driving by on another task when people on the freeway flagged him down.

[00:00:59]What he found was not a normal crash. It was the aftermath of a road rage shooting, a collision, and a child wounded in the backseat of a vehicle that had been on the way to school.

[00:01:49]The boy was 11-year-old Brandon Dominguez Chavarria.

[00:01:56]He was sitting in the rear seat while his stepfather, Valente Ayala, drove him on Friday morning.

[00:02:02]Minutes earlier, two drivers had been moving through congested traffic near Gibson Road.

[00:02:09]By the time police arrived, one man had admitted firing a handgun, one child had been shot, and the freeway had become a crime scene.

[00:02:18]>> Let's realize he's in distress.

[00:02:21]>> I understand.

[00:02:22]>> So, everybody have to stay here until the investigation is done.

[00:02:25]I need more units cuz I can't not watch everybody at the same time. I I can't put too much into any one thing until I got more.

[00:02:32]But, I'm going to I will get it We'll get everybody interviewed. I really appreciate you guys' patience cuz your statement will be critical.

[00:02:39]Um let's let's let's hang out for a second.

[00:02:43]Once my partner gets here, then I'll start getting some basic preliminary stuff.

[00:02:51]Here. Here. Come have a seat right here.

[00:02:52]Come.

[00:02:53]Come sit with me.

[00:02:55]>> Now, you might be wondering how a traffic dispute on a busy freeway turns into a murder charge before most people have even arrived at work. The answer begins a few minutes earlier on the 215 Southern Beltway when two vehicles started fighting for position in traffic.

[00:03:15]>> Okay.

[00:03:15]>> Where are you on the 215?

[00:03:18]>> We're 215 westbound. Just westbound Gibson. Probably between Gibson and Stephanie.

[00:03:25]>> Copy that. I'm sorry, you said on the 215 Southern Beltway?

[00:03:31]>> Uh he's got to be like 12 or 13 perhaps.

[00:03:35]How old How old is What's your name, sir?

[00:03:38]>> On November 14th, 2025, traffic was already slowed.

[00:03:44]Witnesses later told police that the two drivers were moving in and out of lanes, passing near the shoulder, and cutting back through traffic.

[00:03:53]What began as aggressive driving became a verbal exchange.

[00:03:57]Windows came down. Words were traded.

[00:04:01]Then Tyler Johns allegedly pulled out a handgun and fired into the other vehicle.

[00:04:23]Johns did not run.

[00:04:25]He did not deny firing the weapon.

[00:04:28]In the first minutes after officers arrived, he made the statement that would define the scene.

[00:04:34]"It's 100% my fault. I shot at him. I didn't know that he had a kid in the car."

[00:04:56]That detail mattered immediately.

[00:04:58]Police had an admitted shooter, a possible murder scene, and a handgun still inside the suspect vehicle. The officer had to keep the witnesses separated, keep the father away from the wounded child's vehicle, watch Johns, preserve evidence, and wait for enough units to take over a scene spread across live freeway lanes.

[00:05:45]At this point, the officer still did not have the full story. He knew only the visible pieces. A child had been shot in the rear left seat. A suspect had admitted firing. The father was in distress.

[00:05:58]Witnesses were scattered across multiple cars.

[00:06:02]And the vehicle position suggested that the shooting had not ended the encounter.

[00:06:06]It had triggered another collision.

[00:06:08]>> Ooh, it's okay.

[00:06:09]>> So, he got out and then shot at you?

[00:06:11]Okay.

[00:06:12]>> I saw him right there and get out and leave.

[00:06:15]Total crisis.

[00:06:17]>> Okay.

[00:06:19]Okay.

[00:06:20]Was Was he on your So, after the crash is when he shot at you?

[00:06:25]>> No, after No.

[00:06:26]>> He shot and then the crash.

[00:06:27]Okay.

[00:06:28]>> Valente Ayala was Brandon's stepfather.

[00:06:32]On the body cam, he is trying to tell the officer what happened while still looking toward the vehicle where Brandon had been sitting. He says the other driver came around during the merge.

[00:06:44]He says the shooting and crash happened almost together.

[00:06:47]He says he chased or struck John's vehicle after the shot.

[00:06:51]The officer does not push too hard.

[00:06:54]He knows detectives will need clean statements later.

[00:06:57]>> Total crisis.

[00:07:05]>> Okay. Yeah.

[00:07:07]Okay.

[00:07:11]So, you're saying your wallet is in your car. I'll get that in just a minute.

[00:07:15]What's What's your phone number?

[00:07:17]What's your phone number?

[00:07:19]>> This is where the scene becomes two investigations at once.

[00:07:22]First, there is the shooting.

[00:07:25]Who fired? From where? Into which vehicle? And at what moment? Second, there is the crash.

[00:07:33]After Brandon was hit, Ayala's vehicle struck John's's car, forcing both vehicles to stop. The question for investigators was not whether the men had been road raging. Multiple people saw that. The question was which act created the fatal chain.

[00:08:18]One witness becomes important because he saw the pattern before the gunshot became known to him. He was already on the freeway coming from Henderson when he noticed the two vehicles behind him.

[00:08:30]He described them moving in and out of lanes, fighting for space in traffic, and using the emergency lane.

[00:08:39]At first, he thought it was another bad road rage encounter on a Friday morning.

[00:08:44]Then the vehicles caught up to him and the collision unfolded near his own truck.

[00:09:21]>> [music] >> The witness described the final movement as something like a pit maneuver. One vehicle hit the other, spun it, and the crash caught his truck on the right side.

[00:09:35]But this witness also said he did not hear a gunshot.

[00:09:39]That meant the shooting may have happened moments before the impact during the rolling confrontation while the vehicles were still moving through traffic.

[00:09:52]>> Are you holding up?

[00:09:54]All right.

[00:09:55]I'm I'm just going to get your info.

[00:09:57]Um I'm not really going to ask you too many questions, but the detective will ask you the questions. But I still got to get some basic stuff to get things ready for them.

[00:10:04]Uh what's your last name?

[00:10:06]>> Johns. J O H N S.

[00:10:09]>> And your first name?

[00:10:09]>> Tyler.

[00:10:10]>> T Y L E R.

[00:10:12]And your date of birth time?

[00:10:14]>> The first officer's briefing is blunt. A black SUV and a blue car were merging.

[00:10:19]Some kind of road rage occurred. Shots were fired. A child in the rear seat was struck in the head. The driver of the blue car was now the suspect. The pistol was on the passenger side floorboard.

[00:10:33]And Brandon was being treated by emergency crews.

[00:10:37]>> So is there any chance that the kid will be okay?

[00:10:39]>> There's always a chance.

[00:10:41]I I don't know. I've I've seen after 20 years I've seen kind of everything happen. So I won't say it's not possible. I won't say anything could happen. If you're a praying man, I would be praying a lot for him right now.

[00:11:01]What kind of what unit is that?

[00:11:03]>> Uh I don't know.

[00:11:05]>> What's their name then?

[00:11:05]>> Okay.

[00:11:06]>> They're going to >> Uh I haven't got that far yet.

[00:11:10]>> Okay.

[00:11:10]>> All right.

[00:11:12]>> This is the This is the suspect vehicle right here.

[00:11:15]>> This is the first point where the reality reaches Johns in real time.

[00:11:19]He already knew he fired. He already knew the bullet hit someone. But he keeps returning to the same distinction.

[00:11:26]He shot at the driver. He didn't know Brandon was in the back.

[00:11:30]For investigators, that distinction may explain what Jon's thought he was doing.

[00:11:36]It does not undo where the bullet went.

[00:11:58]>> Let me get some of the your son's information. What's your son's first name?

[00:12:01]>> It's calling my son and calling me.

[00:12:03]>> No, the one that's hurt.

[00:12:05]>> A normal >> The gun is the first physical anchor.

[00:12:08]Jon says it is a Canik handgun, two-tone, on the passenger side floorboard.

[00:12:14]Officers do not immediately tear through the vehicle because the crime scene is bigger than the weapon.

[00:12:20]The vehicle itself may show the firing position. The window may show whether it was open or closed. The bullet path may show exactly where Jon's aimed and exactly how Brandon was struck.

[00:12:51]>> Do you guys know his birthday? Okay, we'll leave it at that for now.

[00:12:58]>> The officers begin looking at the victim vehicle without disturbing it. They talk about the window, the spidering glass, and the possible path of the round.

[00:13:07]These early observations are not the final forensic report. They are the first attempts to make the scene make sense.

[00:13:16]The physical evidence will have to answer the one question no witness can answer cleanly.

[00:13:21]>> [music] >> What did the muzzle point at when Jon's pulled the trigger?

[00:13:29]>> Okay. check him down and search him.

[00:13:31]>> Yeah, I patted him pretty good. He said that he said it was down within his car, but I don't want to dig through that too much because Um Let me Let me ask him again.

[00:13:43]>> The witness timeline matters because it shows the shooting did not emerge from a single sudden break tap or one isolated lane change.

[00:13:52]According to the witness, the encounter had been building over distance.

[00:13:57]The two vehicles were already locked into each other before the final merge.

[00:14:02]That pattern would later support the prosecution's view that the shooting was not random.

[00:14:08]It came after a continuing exchange between two drivers who had refused to disengage.

[00:14:15]>> What Where in the vehicle You said the the gun's in the vehicle?

[00:14:18]>> Floorboard.

[00:14:19]>> Floorboard.

[00:14:19]>> The gun's not on the floorboard. The gun is in the seat of the The owner of the vehicle is up in the windshield.

[00:14:24]>> Okay.

[00:14:24]>> Lay down on the >> Okay. Is it Is it just a black handgun?

[00:14:27]>> No. Um it's a Canik. It's a two-tone, so it should be black handle on the top and tan on the >> It Dang.

[00:14:33]>> It's >> Should be on the floorboard.

[00:14:36]The passenger side or the >> Passenger side, floorboard.

[00:14:38]>> Brandon Dominguez-Chavarria was 11 years old. He was not part of the road rage exchange. He was seated behind the adults inside the vehicle on the way to school. Henderson police later said the drivers had been jockeying for position in congested traffic.

[00:14:56]At some point, one tried to pass using the shoulder.

[00:15:00]The windows came down.

[00:15:02]The verbal exchange followed.

[00:15:05]Then Johns allegedly fired into the occupied vehicle.

[00:15:09]>> Yeah, passenger side.

[00:15:10]>> It's not in that I have no clue.

[00:15:12]>> Okay.

[00:15:13]Um Okay, yeah, it's there.

[00:15:19]Okay, like I said, I I because of the nature of the incident, detectives will be coming out, so that's why I don't want to ask you too many questions.

[00:15:25]Uh they're going to ask you a million.

[00:15:26]>> Can I Can I guys like message my work and tell them that I'm not going to be there? Can I text them and just tell my boss that I won't be making it in today?

[00:15:33]>> Uh is your phone in your >> This is the wall in the case.

[00:15:38]Johns can say he did not know Brandon was in the backseat. He can say the conflict was with Ayala. He can say it happened in road rage.

[00:15:47]But he also told officers he fired into a vehicle on a public freeway during morning traffic after a rolling dispute.

[00:15:56]The unknown passenger in the backseat does not make the vehicle less occupied.

[00:16:00]>> I got my phone right here. Can you get it for >> I can do it on the watch, so >> Can you talk with your watch that far down?

[00:16:09]>> I think so.

[00:16:13]>> Let me Let me uncuff you real quick.

[00:16:14]Hang on.

[00:16:15]>> Johns' own words become the cleanest evidence available in the first hour. He identifies the conflict as road rage. He identifies himself as the shooter. He acknowledges fault.

[00:16:28]And he places the gun inside his own car.

[00:16:31]Detectives would still need to reconstruct the full timeline, but the first body cam already contained a confession to the central act.

[00:16:47]>> Yeah, it's That's all. Yeah.

[00:16:51]Hey, we're going to be calling you back.

[00:16:56]Yeah, that Don't tell them like details.

[00:16:58]Just say I I am not going to make it to work.

[00:17:00]>> Yeah, I understand.

[00:17:05]Text your work.

[00:17:09]>> The officer is careful not to conduct a full interrogation on the roadside.

[00:17:13]He understands that Henderson detectives will take over.

[00:17:17]He also understands that spontaneous statements matter.

[00:17:22]Johns has not been walked through a detailed interview. He is speaking in the immediate aftermath while officers are still trying to secure people, cars, and evidence.

[00:17:33]>> Yeah, you got your phone? Just Just your phone?

[00:17:49]Probably got to power that down so you can see the battery.

[00:17:51]>> The scene widens again when officers learn Brandon's mother is on the way.

[00:17:56]Ruby Chavarria will arrive at a freeway scene where police already know her son has been shot and where the suspect has already admitted firing.

[00:18:06]Later in court, she would speak at Johns' bail hearing and say that her son was never coming back.

[00:18:17]>> I do um I I I've got all of them.

[00:18:20]Yeah, we're going to I'll probably uh take all the stuff out of his pockets.

[00:18:23]>> Yeah, yeah, we'll search him. Let me get a bag.

[00:18:25]Okay. I got I got bags. I got bags. You just watch him for a second. I'll grab a bag.

[00:18:30]Uh hang on a second.

[00:18:46]>> Johns was arrested on accusations that included open murder and firearm-related charges connected to discharging into an occupied vehicle. Prosecutors argued the conduct was premeditated.

[00:18:58]At his first court appearance, bail was denied.

[00:19:03]A judge cited the danger created when a gun was fired on a public roadway.

[00:19:08][music] >> There's an HCS timer on this, right?

[00:19:26]>> Oh, this is going to be interesting.

[00:19:28]>> Oh, HCS timer?

[00:19:29]Yeah.

[00:19:32]>> The body cam does not show the moment the trigger was pulled. It shows what came immediately after. The father's panic, the suspect's admission, the witnesses trying to explain traffic movements, and the first officer realizing that a crash on the Beltway was now a homicide investigation.

[00:19:50][music] >> Okay, I'm going to spray you with pepper spray.

[00:19:54]>> She was in a 9 mm other is in route driving in a white Dodge Durango.

[00:20:01]>> Copy.

[00:20:05]The the The The mom's in route.

[00:20:11]She's in a white Dodge Durango, just be advised.

[00:20:15]>> In the end, the case turns on one sentence Tyler John said before the investigation was fully assembled.

[00:20:23]"It's 100% my fault. I shot at him.

[00:20:27]I didn't know that he had a kid in the car." Brandon Dominguez Chavarria was 11 years old. The case against Tyler John was still pending when the available reports were published.