A lawsuit filed in April by the family of a man killed when a corrections officer opened fire on two prisoners as they fought in a hallway leading from the showers claims that fight was intentionally orchestrated by guards in order to justify murdering the inmates. A second lawsuit filed by the other prisoner, who survived the shooting, but was gravely injured, adds allegations of a coverup by prison officials.
At the time of the fight, both inmates had their hands cuffed behind their back and seemingly could have easily been controlled by the three guards present, without the need for the use of a firearm. Instead, they were shot four times in the head and upper body with a shotgun. Both lawsuits maintain that the inmates did not represent a threat to the guards sufficient to justify being repeatedly shot.
The incident, which took place on November 12, 2014 at High Desert State Prison in Indian Springs NV, has prompted numerous questions about past shootings at the prison and the quality of training and hiring practices for prison guards within the Nevada Department of Corrections. Nevada prisons have also faced ongoing and long term criticism for the lack of medical care for inmates, including not properly treating gunshot wounds inflicted by guards. Nevada prisons throughout (and prisons nationwide) have an extensive and documented history of abuse and mistreatment of inmates by guards.
The two inmates, Carlos Perez and Andrew Arevalo, were restricted to solitary confinement when the incident took place. Simply the fact that they were in the hallway together in the first place, represents a severe violation of policy. Per NDOC rules, inmates on solitary confinement are not supposed to be taken to or from the different areas of the prison at the same time, specifically in order to prevent such fights from happening.
In addition, Perez, who was killed by the (as yet unnamed) guard’s shotgun blasts was being held in protective custody (for undisclosed reasons) and therefore likely would have been a target of other prisoners. That has added to speculation that the two were intentionally allowed to cross paths with the expectation that an altercation would take place between them. Cal Potter, the lawyer for the Perez family, characterized the fight as a “gladiator-like” scenario created by those guards.
Subsequent to the fight, Arevalo was internally convicted of assault and murder charges by the warden of the prison, although the murder charge was overturned once it became public as part of the lawsuit. Arevalo’s attorney, Alexis Plunkett, maintains that those charges were part of a cover-up by prison officials. She states that the guards present at the time actually placed the shotgun in Arevalo’s hands, in order to make it look like he had shot Perez and then been shot by the guard. Plunkett says that the guards were expecting both inmates to die from their wounds and that their version of events would be the only one available.
Questions have also arisen about why it wasn’t disclosed until months afterwards that a firearm was involved in the death of Perez. In fact, his own family was not told that he had been shot and only discovered it when they looked at his body in the morgue. It wasn’t until March of 2015, over four months later, that the cause of death for Carlos Perez was finally made public.
Kelly is a lifelong resident of Las Vegas, who’s been very active in local grassroots activism, as well as on a national level during his extensive travels. He’s also the founder/main contributor of Nevada Cop Block, served as editor/contributor at CopBlock.org and designed the Official Cop Block Press Passes.
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I bet they had a history of assaulting officers, or had allegations against the prison guards. They killed them to cover up their crap I bet!
Put wings on corrupt pigs. Traitors to america and we the people.
You must mean angel wings
Of course the family will sue. The guy is in jail, gets into a fight. The officers will only yell stop once. They will shoot. That is in their protocols. Prison is serious business. The guy put himself in prison.
Well leave it to this fucking moron who tries to justify killing the guy just because he’s in prison.
And in handcuffs.
“….A report by the trainee guard dated the day after the Nov. 12 incident
describes how he warned Andrew Arevalo, 24, and Carlos Manuel Perez Jr.,
28, to stop fighting, fired one blank, issued more warnings, and then
fired three live rounds down the hall. Perez died of gunshot wounds to
the head, neck, chest, and arms; Arevalo suffered similar wounds but
survived…”
“….Perez, 28, was a two-time felon serving 18 months to four years for
hitting a man in the head with a two-by-four piece of lumber in downtown
Las Vegas two days before Thanksgiving 2012….”
Sounds like he and the other inmate ate some buckshot. I guess they should have checked the fight card for that day and bowed out.
Sounds about right. Celebrate these cops shooting hand-cuffed men. They are pussies, just like you.
Common sense does not stick to the roots of his user name
First rule of fight club.
Great. So why the cover-up? I’m not saying this was some orchestrated execution, but it sure sounds like negligence to me. This all could have been avoided if they had followed established policies designed to prevent inmates from fighting like that to begin with.
Just last year, another prisoner at that same facility was awarded over $300,000 for being shot by a guard. I think it’s worth at least that much to NDOC to make this one go away.
So they got off scott free? Not suprising no one in court could care less if a cop or a prison guard abuses his powers and kills a prison inmate
The guards did the right thing. These men might have caused serious injury to each other
I think it goes something like this…cock roaches, security guards, prison guards and then cops.
Guards don’t give a shit if inmates beat the shit out of each other or kill each other. They wait outside until its done and clean up the mess. They wanted those guys dead. I’ve seen it first hand