NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. (KLAS) — The shooting death of a 36-year-old North Las Vegas man was never publicized, leading the victim’s family to question why police did not alert the public about the city’s seventh homicide, at that point, so far this year.
Someone shot and killed Roddrick “Spud” Beasley on Wednesday, May 17, in a neighborhood near Tropical Parkway and Pecos Road in the northeast valley.
“It’s heartbreaking that my mom has to walk out of her door every morning and look down the street and see that her son was killed there,” China Beasley, Roddrick’s sister, said.
The Clark County coroner’s office ruled Roddrick’s death a homicide, saying he died from multiple gunshot wounds. It was unclear if North Las Vegas police had identified a suspect as of Wednesday. A spokesperson said the investigation was ongoing and releasing information could jeopardize police work.
China said her brother was in front of a neighbor’s home when he was shot.
“From my understanding, when all the neighbors came to talk to us, they said he wasn’t bothering anybody at all,” China said. “He was just standing in the middle of the street talking and singing to himself and rapping. He was in his own little world.”
China said it angered her that the media was not informed about the homicide. Failing to alert the public about the incident means fewer possible leads and concern about an outstanding arrest, she said.
“You look on the news any other day there’s something going on in North Las Vegas, it’s all over the news,” she said.
“Why is it that you want people to know that this happened?” 8 News Now Investigator David Charns asked China.
“I want answers,” she said. “I want answers for my mom and my family and my nephew.”
She said without the notification, her brother’s death is not being acknowledged.
“Not giving us information, you’re making people want to just, it’s right down the street, making people just want to retaliate but we don’t want that — we want peace,” China said. “We want to lay our brother to peace.”
Records indicate homicides also occurred in North Las Vegas on May 28 and May 29 — the ninth and tenth homicides of 2023. 8 News Now was working to get more information on those incidents as well.
It is standard procedure for police departments to alert the media, and the public, about major events, such as homicides or officer-involved shootings, but each department has its own policy. Las Vegas Metro police send alerts to the media about their response to their incidents, with limited information, oftentimes within an hour or less.
The 8 News Now Investigators asked departments across the country of similar size to North Las Vegas about when they alert the media.
“Regarding notification of media during what our department deems a ‘callout’ (i.e. collision with life-threatening injuries, a homicide, police-involved shooting, or an incident involving a juvenile) we send out an email with basic information to our media contacts that details the time the call came in, the location the incident occurred at, if there are any major injuries and that an investigation is ongoing,” a spokesperson for the Lubbock Police Department said. “If there was a threat to the public, we would include that in the email as well. Our goal is to disperse information equally across the board to our local media partners.”
“We send an alert to local media when there is an active scene,” St. Louis police told 8 News Now.
Some departments, like police in Reno, post updates about their responses to major crimes throughout the day.
North Las Vegas police did not send out a media alert about an officer-involved shooting on May 16 for nearly five hours, citing the need to review body camera video.