The Las Vegas police department is accused of corruption after shooting Treven Cole.
Las Vegas police shot a black man in the face and killed him - for trying to flush a small amount of marijuana down the toilet in his apartment, the man's family says. The family says the police squad "drank alcohol on the job during the relevant time period at issue in this lawsuit."
Trevon Cole, 21, "a vibrant young man full of life and energy," who had just moved to Las Vegas with his pregnant fiancée with the "hope of starting a new life together" and playing football at UNLV was shot to death by Det. Bryan Yant on June 11, 2010, his family says in their federal complaint.
Cole was unarmed when about 11 officers raided his small, one-bedroom apartment in East Las Vegas, according to the complaint. He was watching TV with his fiancée, Sequoia Pearce, when officers destroyed the front door and "broke through a window to raid the sparsely furnished apartment."
Cole ran to the "only bathroom in the apartment and began flushing down the toilet what little marijuana he had in his possession," the complaint states.
As Cole squatted in front of the toilet, Yant kicked in the door and shot him in the side of the face with an AR-15 assault rifle, the family says.
"Cole posed no threat to Yant at any time before he was brutally killed," the complaint states.
Cole's only crime was that he had "sold an approximate total of 1.8 ounces of marijuana, over the period of a month, to undercover Det. Christopher Cannon," according to the complaint.
After the killing, Cole's family says, the defendant Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department followed its "policy, practice and custom ... to slant all investigations of officer-involved shootings in favor of the shooting officer. The goal of the investigations is to concoct excuses for 'bad shoots' instead of investigating these matters in a neutral fashion and punishing the shooting officers when appropriate."
Link: http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/04/22/36019.htm