LAS VEGAS (KLAS) – Steven Bowman told 8 News Now he dodged death on Thursday evening after police said a man who had just been fired by his employer drove an SUV through neighborhood sidewalks and streets.
Police responded to reports of a driver attempting to run over a pedestrian near Charleston and Decatur Thursday evening around 6:30 p.m. That pedestrian just fired the driver from his job, according to LVMPD Homicide Lieutenant Jason Johansson.
“The male who was struck by the car was conducting remodeling of a house at the 900 block of Dover Place. The person who was driving the SUV worked for him and, from what we’re being told, showed up to work (Thursday) in a condition where he was unfit to do his job and was fired,” Johansson said during a Thursday night media briefing. “He was attempting to hit him while driving east and westbound, both in forward and reverse.”
This began minutes of what one neighbor described as “a blasted movie.” Nearby home security footage obtained by 8 News Now captured multiple instances of the black SUV chasing a person up and down the street and sidewalk around the corner from the home under remodel.
The pedestrian was eventually struck as the SUV reverses while speeding, per the video that then shows the man fall underneath the vehicle before being catapulted to a nearby wall.
Later video shows Bowman – who lives on the street – jumping over a different wall as the SUV continued to drive erratically and sped towards him and two other neighbors.
“I heard somebody say, ‘he’s coming back,’ and I couldn’t move,” Bowman said Friday morning, standing where wall debris sliced open his left leg hours prior. “He didn’t care who he was coming after.”
Bowman said he was released from the hospital within eight hours of impact. The employer was sent to the hospital with non-life threatening but “major” injuries, police stated on Thursday.
Destruction witnessed on Friday appeared to show that the car may have run through three separate front lawns and their adjoining walls and fences.
After the employer was hit, Ana Tilley – who lives at the next property over – said she told her 27-year-old grandson to “grab my shotgun.”
“(My grandson was) hollering at him, ‘Stop! Stop!’ The guy wouldn’t stop,” Tilley said next to her property Friday morning. “I said, ‘Throw me the gun.’ No. He raised the gun, and I thought, ‘Oh my god! Oh my god!’”
As the driver charged towards him, security video obtained by 8 News Now shows Tilley’s grandson firing at least three shots through the windshield and driver’s side window to subdue the driver. The SUV then comes to a stop on the sidewalk and a front lawn. Tilley and others recount seeing injuries to the driver’s face.
“The realization is finally starting to hit me,” Tilley said, breathing heavily. “We all leave each other alone (in the neighborhood), but when it comes down to the down and out, yeah, we help each other.”
On Thursday, police told 8 News Now the man identified himself as the shooter and then cooperated with officers as he was taken into custody.
Tilley told 8 News Now he was released by Friday morning. The identity of the driver and his boss have not been released by police.
