Cops: Las Vegas "road rage" shooting suspect told friends he fired 22 times
LAS VEGAS -- A suspect in the Las Vegas shooting death of a woman that may have been sparked by road rage claims he fired 22 shots from a semiautomatic handgun, police say they were told by friends of the gunman.
CBS affiliate KLAS reports that, according to the arrest report, Erich Nowsch, Jr., 19, two friends claimed Nowsch shot two people who were "after me" on the night that Tammy Meyers was shot.
Nowsch was arrested Thursday Feb. 19 for shooting Meyers, 44, on Feb. 12. She was shot in the head and died two days later.
The report released Friday offers new details of the violent encounter between suspect Nowsch and victim Tammy Meyers and her son Brandon Meyers. Police say Nowsch fired several shots at them on two occasions that night - once a few blocks away from their house and again in the cul-de-sac outside the home.
According to KLAS, police learned Nowsch called some friends a few hours after the shooting and wanted to talk with them. Those friends reportedly said Nowsch, who is also known as Baby G, told them he was at a park near the school where Tammy Meyers was teaching her 15-year-old daughter how to drive. Citing the police report, KLAS says Nowsch claims he saw a green car driving around the parking lot and thought the people in the car were looking for him so he called a friend to pick him up. That friend reportedly drives a four-door silver sedan.
Police say Nowsch's friends also said Nowsch told them that a while later the green car began following them and he thought he saw someone point a gun out the window so he loaded his gun and began shooting at the car, the report said. Nowsch said they followed the car to the house where he fired more shots.
According to the police report, Nowsch told his friends, "got those kids, they were after me and I got them." Nowsch, police say, told his friends no one fired shots at him, but he knew he shot a person next to the car.
Nowsch's friends' account, per the police report, still leaves unanswered questions, including about earlier claims by Tammy Meyers' family that she had a confrontation on the road before the encounter that involved gunfire.
Police have said that Meyers' family initially told them the incident stemmed from an encounter while Meyers was teaching her daughter to drive. In the days since, they have revealed that Tammy Meyers returned home after the first encounter, woke her son and told him to get his gun, then drove around looking for the silver sedan.
On Thursday, the family admitted to having an ongoing relationship with Nowsch. Robert Meyers, the victim's husband, told reporters his family knew Nowsch and that his wife had been a mentor of sorts, giving the teenager money and food and urging him to dress properly.
"We know this boy," Robert Meyers said. "I couldn't tell you this before. He knew where I lived. We knew how bad he was but we didn't know he was this bad."
He said his wife spent countless hours "consoling this boy."
"She fed him, she gave him money, she told him to pull his pants up and be a man," Robert Meyers said.
Nowsch is facing charges of murder with a deadly weapon, attempted murder with a deadly weapon and discharging a firearm from a vehicle.
Nowsch is due scheduled to make a court appearance Monday morning.