Man Who Killed 5 People Near Las Vegas Banned From Owning Gun – NBC Chicago

A man who opened fire at an apartment complex near Las Vegas, killing five people and injuring a 13-year-old girl, has been banned from possessing a gun because of prior felony convictions, according to officials. court records.

The suspect, Eric Adams, then shot himself in the head as North Las Vegas police officers confronted him.

Police said Adams used a handgun in Monday night's shooting, but they were still investigating how he obtained the weapon. Nevada law prohibits people with felony convictions from owning or possessing a firearm.

“Adams should never have been in possession of a firearm,” police spokesman Brian Thomas said.

Adams was visiting his former girlfriend in a downstairs apartment when they began arguing and Adams shot the woman's 24-year-old daughter and his girlfriend, killing them both. He then shot a neighbor, a 20-year-old man, who came from his second-floor apartment to help, police said.

After shooting the neighbor, police said Adams entered the upstairs unit and opened fire again, killing the neighbor's grandmother and mother and seriously injuring his teenage sister.

Adams then “took his ex-girlfriend hostage” and fled in a vehicle, according to the police department. The woman was able to escape early in the morning and call a police officer for help.

Shortly after 10 a.m. Tuesday, police learned the suspect had been seen at a business in North Las Vegas, and when officers arrived in the area, they saw the suspect with a gun, running into the backyard of a nearby home.

Officers followed Adams, but he refused to drop his weapon and shot himself, police said.

The Clark County Coroner's Office said Adams was 48 years old at the time of his death, not 47 as initially reported by the police department.

Since at least 1994, Adams had been convicted in Clark County of violent crimes, including battery, domestic battery and battery of a police officer, according to court records.

Most recently, Adams was arrested in February by North Las Vegas police on suspicion of domestic battery by strangulation. Court records show the case was dismissed because the victim was not cooperating with authorities.

Michael Hyte, a public defender who briefly represented Adams in the case, said Thursday he had no comment.

The coroner's office identified the 24-year-old victim as Kayla Harris and the two women killed in the apartment above as Damiana Moreno, 59, and Amy Damian, 40. On Thursday evening, police said the coroner identified another victim as Jeannette Faria-Webster, 22, but did not release additional details. The name of the other victim has not been released.

Harris played college basketball at Adams State University in southern Colorado, where she was pursuing a master's degree in business administration, said David Tandberg, university president.

In a statement, Tandberg called it a privilege “to watch Kayla excel on and off the field.”

“It seems almost impossible to understand and cope with the loss of a young woman so early in her promising life,” he said.

The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 on Friday to uphold a federal law that prohibits people subject to domestic violence restraining orders from owning firearms.