Las Vegas police narcotics officers burst into the Mirabella Apartments home of 21-year-old Trevon Cole at about 9 p.m. on Friday 11 June 2010 to serve a search warrant for marijuana.[1] Cole, soon to become a father, was shot once in the bathroom of the apartment he shared with his fiancee Sequoia Pearce, who was nine months pregnant and present during the raid.[1] Police said Cole made what they called a “furtive movement”; Pearce said officers forced her to kneel at gunpoint, that she could see Cole in the bathroom from a mirror’s reflection, and that he raised his hands and said “Alright, alright” before a shot rang out.[1]

The shooter was Detective Bryan Yant, who testified at a coroner’s inquest that he kicked in the bathroom door and found Cole squatting by the toilet, apparently flushing his stash.[2] Yant said Cole rose and made an aggressive, shooting motion with something metallic in his hands; no such object was found, though Cole was holding a yellow tube of lip balm.[2] The position of the body and the downward path of the bullet through his cheek into his neck indicated he was still crouching when shot, suggesting the gun may have discharged accidentally as Yant came through the door.[2]

A warrant built on the wrong man

The inquest exposed errors in Yant’s search-warrant application.[2] Despite holding a copy of Cole’s California driver’s licence with his description and birth date, Yant confused him with a different Trevon Cole from Houston and California, seven years older, at least three inches shorter and 100 pounds lighter.[2] Yant also wrongly claimed the other man had a history of drug trafficking when his record showed only possession charges.[2] The same detective was under investigation over claims he lied about drugs he did not seize and actions he did not take during a 2009 raid that never happened.[2]

The seven-member inquest jury nevertheless ruled the shooting justified.[2] Of about 200 Clark County coroner’s inquests into officer-involved killings since 1976, only one had found criminal negligence.[2] Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie promised a review and said that until internal processes were checked, all forced-entry search warrants would be served by the SWAT unit instead.[2]