By Ken Ritter Associated Press
Tuesday, August 3, 2021
LAS VEGAS — Four law enforcement officers fired 26 shots at a carjacking suspect in a disabled car with a fatally injured a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper still lodged inside after he was struck and smashed through the windshield during a Las Vegas freeway chase last week, a police official said Monday.
The suspect, Douglas Claiborne, died in the shooting about noon on July 27 on busy Interstate 15 near the Las Vegas Strip.
The trooper, Micah May, died two days later at a local hospital.
May was crumpled inside the car and wasn't hit by any of the shots fired by one trooper and three Nevada state parole and probation officers, Clark County Undersheriff Chris Darcy told reporters in a briefing.
It was not immediately clear how many shots hit Claiborne, who lived in Hawaii.
Officers reported Claiborne was reaching for May's gun, Darcy said, and investigators found a foot-long kitchen knife that Claiborne reportedly displayed when the owner of the 2020 Hyundai sedan tried to stop him from taking his vehicle with the keys inside from a construction site.
The car ran over the owner's foot, Darcy said, and troopers later spotted and tried to stop the Hyundai on the I-15 freeway.
A chase lasted more than 40 minutes on freeways and surface streets before May was struck while trying to deploy a tire-flattening device across freeway lanes.
A Las Vegas police helicopter was watching from above, and Darcy said the Hyundai veered around the spike strip and appeared to drive directly toward the trooper, whose boots were sent flying as he fell mortally injured through the windshield.
Funeral services were scheduled Friday in Henderson for May, 46, a 13-year trooper who received awards for apprehending impaired drivers and a departmental Medal of Valor in 2014. He is survived by his wife and two children.
Claiborne, 60, originally from Iowa and once arrested while traveling through an airport in Texas, lived on plentiful trust fund money in and around Honolulu and was sometimes homeless, said Victor Bakke, his longtime criminal defense lawyer in Hawaii.
Claiborne had a severe methamphetamine addiction that became worse in recent years, Bakke told The Associated Press on Friday. The attorney said he was surprised by reports from authorities that Claiborne was involved in an armed carjacking.
Bakke acknowledged Claiborne was a convicted felon with arrests for robbery, assault and felony drug charges.
The attorney represented Claiborne in April 2015 when he pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Hawaii to conspiracy to commit bribery in a prison smuggling case.
Bakke said Claiborne served more than two years in federal prison and he became erratic following his release from custody in October 2019. Bakke said he had not heard from Claiborne for several months.
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