Family lawyer alleges Vegas officer misconduct in fatal case
LAS VEGAS — Relatives of an unarmed man who died after a struggle with a police officer outside a Las Vegas casino want the officer fired and brought up on criminal charges for repeatedly using a stun gun and then placing the man in an unauthorized chokehold, an attorney for the family said Thursday.
Las Vegas police should also stop using stun guns and training officers to use a neck restraint intended to cut off the flow of blood to the brain, attorney Andre Lagomarsino said.
“This was a fatal cocktail of misconduct,” Lagomarsino said a day after a top Las Vegas police official showed body camera video of officer Kenneth Lopera using his stun gun seven times on Tashii S. Brown. The officer also punched Brown several times and held him in a mixed martial arts chokehold for more than a minute after a foot chase through The Venetian casino.
Lopera called the arm-around-the-neck manoeuvr a “rear naked choke,” Clark County Undersheriff Kevin McMahill said. It is not authorized by Las Vegas police.