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Police in Las Vegas are asking the public for help locating several people who came to the aid of a woman being raped in a shed in a Las Vegas community. As the group rescued the woman from her attacker, the attacker was fatally stabbed in the process.

Las Vegas police reported that just after 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, dispatchers received a report of a person stabbed near a residential neighborhood about seven miles northeast of the Las Vegas Strip, USA Today reports. Arriving officers located a man suffering from apparent stab wounds in a nearby alley, police wrote in a press release. The man was taken to a hospital where police said he was later pronounced dead.

According to a preliminary investigation by homicide detectives, the fatal stabbing victim appears to have been sexually assaulting a woman in a nearby shed before he was attacked. The woman’s age was not immediately known.

“A group of citizens ran to assist when they heard a woman’s screams coming from the shed,” police wrote in the release. “It is believed that the victim was stabbed during the intervention.”

Police said everyone in the group fled the scene before officers arrived.

The stabbing victim’s official cause of death is pending an autopsy, though us noncoroner types at TTAG are pretty sure the result will come up as “stabbing” as the cause of death or “severe allergic reaction to metal.” Police said the stabbing victim’s identity, as well as the cause and manner of death, will be released by the Clark County Coroner’s Office following the autopsy.

The case remains under investigation.

The question remains: Is the group of people in trouble? Nevada law allows for the use of deadly force by citizens in preventing death or serious bodily harm to themselves or third parties and rape can definitely be seen as serious bodily harm. The problem could come down to was the stabbing needed to halt the attack or protect the rescuers from the alleged rapist if he turned violent toward them, or did they pull him off the woman and while a couple of people held him down, another person with a knife step in and stab the guy as punishment?

Despite the heat and adrenaline-fueled actions of such moments—even though most logical thinking people would say the sexual predator got what he deserved—the law can look at the situation much differently. As part of that investigation, police will need to find the people who came to the woman’s aid and determine how the situation played out.

One person who is likely glad it ended as it did regardless of the “legality” is the female victim.

59 COMMENTS

  1. Sometimes yes is the correct answer. Hard to know for sure what actually happened but not going to lose much sleep over it either way.

    • “Sometimes yes is the correct answer.”

      By Nevada and Federal law, probably.

      That being said, if the cops don’t ‘no-bill’ him, put me on the jury, I’ll see to it he walks, and I’ll sleep like a baby.

      (Meaning, waking up every 2 hours, hungry and wet… 😉 )

    • I can’t think of anywhere that it’s easier to shovel than the LV desert… whatever happened to
      shtab, shovel, shut the hell up ?
      Not that complicated people.

  2. ““A group of citizens ran to assist when they heard a woman’s screams coming from the shed,” police wrote in the release. “It is believed that the victim was stabbed during the intervention.”

    Police said everyone in the group fled the scene before officers arrived.”

    Must have some video or that statement is pure conjecture.

    He shouldn’t have been doing that…

      • Your concern for the victim may fly with fools on this forum but not with me you sick perverted pos.

        • The only victim in this incident is the girl that was getting raped.

          The dead perpetrator is 100% reformed…and is no longer a danger to the public.

          • Not reformed, but rather permanently now paying for his sins for eternity.

            Totally agree on who the victim is. Lots of laws, precious little justice anymore. Small wonder everyone split.

        • “…but not with me you sick perverted pos.”

          She wants me. If she asks nicely, I’d consider giving her the deeply personal attention she craves… 😉

  3. It’s dangerous to trust the legal system in cases like this. Yes, it was justice, but also yes, the dispenser of justice is all too likely to be “in trouble” according to the system. He’d be second-guessed to death at trial.

    Evading identification isn’t necessarily a bad choice.

  4. “According to a preliminary investigation by homicide detectives, the fatal stabbing victim appears to have been sexually assaulting a woman in a nearby shed before he was attacked. The woman’s age was not immediately known.”

    Portraying the bad guy committing the crime as specifically a ‘victim’, but the sexual assault victim is just “a woman in a nearby shed”? Seriously?

    “the fatal stabbing victim appears…” then at the end there is this “One person who is likely glad it ended as it did regardless of the ‘legality’ is the female victim.”

    So there are two victims each equal in their status as ‘victims’?

    “the fatal stabbing victim appears to have been sexually assaulting a woman in a nearby shed before he was attacked.”

    There is only one victim, the female who was sexually assaulted “in a nearby shed”.

    Liberal Left-wing (especially anti-gun) (and this came from USA today, its full of liberal left wingers) does this all the time, treating (or referring to) bad guys as ‘victims’ or referring to them as ‘justice impacted individuals’.

    If its an ‘alleged’ bad guy this would be better worded as …

    “According to a preliminary investigation by homicide detectives, the fatally stabbing alleged perpetrator appears to have been sexually assaulting a woman in a nearby shed before he was attacked. The woman’s age was not immediately known.”

    So maybe its all a set up, maybe the woman lied, and those several ‘that came to her aid’ they are looking for. Maybe they all conspired to kill this guy and lured him there then stabbed him. He still isn’t a ‘victim’ yet until the investigation determines he didn’t do it, hes still the alleged perpetrator.

    • oh thank you. I counted one victim, and one perp. Did I miss when a suspected rapist changes to become a “victim”.

  5. BREAKING: In Rahimi, Supreme Court Rules Individuals Found to Be a Threat Can Be Temporarily Disarmed > https://www.shootingnewsweekly.com/2024/06/21/breaking-in-rahimi-supreme-court-rules-individuals-found-to-be-a-threat-can-be-temporarily-disarmed/

    “Today, in an 8 to 1 decision (Justice Thomas dissented), the Court held that it is constitutional under the Second Amendment to temporarily disarm individuals through domestic violence restraining orders who are found to be threats.”

    • Meanwhile, they can find nothing in the Constitution justifying this, so they just made it up. Supreme Court does this all the time, sadly.

  6. You can’t be a victim of a crime while commenting a crime. In all likelihood everyone involved in this was homeless and wanted nothing to do with the police.

  7. Did they get the right guy??? Yes they did. So nothing to see here.

    On the other hand. The Libertarians liberals and the left will disagree. Because they always default to making excuses for criminal behavior.

    And they believe there are too many criminals being locked up in America. So release them and empty the jails they say.

  8. As I have said before on TTAG. You should be able to shoot these criminals dead on site. When you catch them robbing, raping, stealing, breaking into, or vandalizing private property.

    This case is a result to defund the police movement. We will always have law enforcement. The only question is. In what form will that law enforcement take???

  9. Devils advocate – if you come across any fight, you might not know who is who.

    One of our force on force scenarios involved us coming across a guy stabbing a girl. Some of us shot the guy and some of us bowled him over physically.

    Later on we found out that the guy was the original victim and the girl tried to stab him, but he disarmed her and tried to stab her back.

    Caveat emptor.

    • In real life it would be automatically ruled a good shoot either way as long as you have a badge.

      Other poster here suggested that this could have been a honeypot style trap.

  10. Legal is a term determined in a court of law. A citizen is neither an attorney, judge, prosecutor of law enforcement officer.

    We need to understand a citizen responding to a violent felony cannot and should not be held to the same level of “legal requirement” of a law enforcement or other executive branch employee.

    Imagine if thugs knew that any violent crime they commit may result in serious bodily injury which would only cease when law enforcement arrived….if they arrived. And they also knew that the citizen would not be held liable in criminal or civil court for any and all actions they took.

  11. All depends on if the victim’s story is true and if she identifies the vigilantes. They have to verify her attack is geniune and wasn’t a setup, check the record of the deceased, etc. After that it depends on how far the detectives want to take it, which if it were me and all was cut and dry…case closed.

  12. Looking at the quotes it is clear these cops aren’t looking to give the rescuers a civic award. I’m fairly certain the rescuers are well aware of the kind of cops they have locally and decided to be scarce based on that knowledge.

  13. Often times “Good Samaritans” wish to remain anonymous rather than seek accolades for their good deeds, this appears to be one of those situations.

    I’m sure the detectives in Las Vegas have plenty of more pressing matters to deal with.

  14. Sometimes events happen that the society needs to happen, but the STATE does not like the public to take the law into their own hands.
    In the past Committees of Vigilance (Vigilantes) cleaned up when the LE apparatus was nonacting or corrupt but they themselves became corrupted into acting blindly or settling old scores.
    It is a two-edged sword.

  15. To quote or at least paraphrase the Guild Navigator in Dune, “I wasn’t here. You didn’t see me.”

    Just shoot, or stab, shovel and shut up is usually the best policy.

  16. This is how we stop crime, vigilante justice or not.
    The community steps in and Law Enforcement steps back.
    No further investigation needed.

  17. 2nd Samuel 22:38

    “I pursued my enemies and crushed them; I did not turn back till they were destroyed.

    I crushed them completely, and they could not rise; they fell beneath my feet.

    You armed me with strength for battle; you humbled my adversaries before me.

    You made my enemies turn their backs in flight, and I destroyed my foes.

    They cried for help, but there was no one to save them — to the Lord, but he did not answer.

    I beat them as fine as the dust of the earth; I pounded and trampled them like mud in the streets.

  18. Another lame article with lame comments. Nothing “vigilante” about this incident. People in the area were vigilant and observed a dangerous felony in progress. The perpetrator of the crime was stopped from continuing to harm the victim. No committee, no post crime punishment, no self appointment. See Merriam-Webster dictionary.

  19. With the justice system in this country constantly letting the people down, and failing to prosecute criminals, it would be understandable if the rapist was executed. I’m not saying it was right, just that it was understandable. Maybe the reason the people who came to the woman’s aid are anonymous, is that they also had something to hide from the law. I say let sleeping dogs lie.

  20. ” . . .the law can look at the situation much differently.”

    Yes, the so-called law was have him back out on the street in a year or so, ready to menace other women. There is only law now, no justice. When people see no justice, they have to provide it themselves. And they are supposed to turn themselves in, so the “law” can determine if THEY did anything wrong. Trust me, there would be no justice. The “law” cries when a poor criminal doesn’t get back out on the street.

  21. So there are still some who have confidence in today’s justice system? Bless your hearts.

  22. When the good guys stab a rapist caught in the act of raping, and the rapist dies, there really needs to be something in between “guilty of murder” and “not guilty.”
    How about “guilty of taking out the trash without a permit,” punishable by a $50 fine?
    The law needs to be revised to allow for people to take out the trash without spending the rest of their life in prison!

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