Vin Suprynowicz

As I mentioned the other day, Sequioa Pearce was made to kneel before the Las Vegas police officers who held her at gunpoint in her bedroom Friday night, June 11, and watch them shoot her unarmed fiance in the head.

The 20-year-old, who was nine months pregnant, could see her fiance, Trevon Cole, reflected in the mirror from the bathroom, where he, too, was being held at gunpoint as officers told him to get on the floor. He met her gaze in the mirror. She watched him put his hands up.

“All right, all right,” he said to police, according to Pearce.

Then she heard the shot. The man she planned to marry slid to the floor, blood pouring from a gunshot wound — some have reported a shotgun blast — to the face.

Officers rushed her out of the apartment. Trevon Cole, 21, died minutes later.

Pearce will raise her daughter alone.

Officers were serving a pot warrant on the apartment at 2850 E. Bonanza Road, near Eastern Avenue. The warrant was based on Cole having made three marijuana sales to undercover police, according to Deputy Chief Joseph Lombardo, who oversees Metro’s narcotics section. (Marijuana, for the record, is not a narcotic. It’s barely even illegal, anymore.)

The shooting poses a small problem for police. Ms. Pearce, who survives, says police were upset they could find no drugs in the apartment that night, that Mr. Cole was unarmed, that he put up no resistance, that he owned no firearms.

Of course, any old bag of pot from the evidence locker can be presented at the coroner’s inquest. No attorney for Cole’s family will be allowed to ask any questions, and when I tried to attend such an inquest I had my way barred, told by armed bailiffs “It isn’t open to the public.”

How to explain the gun going off, though? The shooter, Officer Bryan Yant, says Cole made a “furtive movement.”

Ah, yes. Was it in the third or the fourth day at the police academy that they used to cover that section: “What to do when you’ve just accidentally shot an unarmed suspect in the head, killing him, in a situation where you really shouldn’t have even had your finger inside the trigger guard?”

As we’ve seen played out in the deaths of Henry Rowe, John Perrin, and Orlando Barlow, the standard prescription seems to be: First: Pray to heaven it was a homeless guy or a Negro; those cases are ALWAYS found to be “justified.” Second: check to see if anyone remembered to bring the “drop bag” of drugs. But third and most of important of all: Memorize this phrase. Come on, now, let’s all repeat it together:

“He made a furtive movement toward his waistband.”

Now, if only they could show Trevor Cole owned a gun. No one on the coroner’s jury would care where they FOUND the gun, as long as they could show he or the girlfriend HAD one. After all, the coroner’s jurors (where do they find these people, Opportunity Village?) are led through their paces by prosecutors who don’t have to worry about any pesky “cross examination,” like pet rabbits dressed up by little children and walked through a tea party in the doll house. If only the retards on the coroner’s jury could be shown a gun, any gun …

# # #

At 11:45 a.m. Monday June 21, 10 days after they killed Trevon Cole, Metro police were at another Las Vegas apartment complex, near Owens Avenue and H Street, in the traditionally black West End.

A patrol officer “heard shots fired” and “saw movement at an open upstairs window” in one of the apartments there, said spokescop Sgt. Andy Walsh. Concluding that was where the shots came from, he called for backup.

The officers then approached the home with a bullhorn, demanding that anyone inside come out.

The only person home was Shannon Sutton, 18-year-old brother of … Sequioa Pearce! Yes! This was the apartment of Sequioa Pearce’s mother, where she had gone to stay after Officer Bryan Yant killed her fiance. What a coincidence!

Sutton, who recently graduated from Rancho High School, said he did not know it was cops knocking on the door and chose not to answer. He came downstairs when he heard the door open. The door was apparently unlocked, and he said officers were at the foot of the stairs with guns drawn.

Police said they entered the home immediately to check whether anyone inside was in danger. Officers handcuffed Sutton and sat him in the back of a police car on a charge of obstructing a police officer because he would not immediately identify himself.

The rest of the family, including Ms. Pearce and her new, week-old daughter, returned home in time to see the incident unfold.

Sgt. Walsh said officers did not need a warrant to check the home to see whether anyone inside was hurt, but they did need a warrant or written consent from a resident to search for guns or ammunition.

So, Trenia Cole — Sequioa Pearce’s mother but otherwise no relation to Trevon Cole — said officers demanded she sign a written consent form in exchange for a promise not to transport her son to jail.

Spokescop Walsh explained it’s not uncommon for officers to use that sort of leverage. “If they believe there’s a gun in the residence, we would certainly offer what we could to get the consent to search,” he said.

Trenia Cole signed the card, asking only “that you don’t tear up my house,” which of course they did.

No firerarm was found.

Awww.

It doesn’t matter whether this kind of police behavior is “not uncommon” — it’s illegal, and it’s fair to wonder why cops expect us to respect the law when their own attitude is “Screw the law, do whatever’s most expedient.”

Either they had a suspect who deserved to go to jail, and they let him loose in order to extort the waiver of Mrs. Cole’s Fourth Amendment rights, or else they threatened to haul an innocent young man to jail in order to extort her waiver of her Fourth Amendment rights.

Either way, extortion under color of law.

And why?

Since there was no firearm found, clearly no shot came from that apartment, if the officer really “heard a shot,” at all.

Did officers bring in an armored vehicle, and stay behind cover? Why not, if they really believed they were under fire?

Does it really merit a search just because police believe you “have a gun in a residence”? If so, a roster of people who have been issued Clark County gun registration “blue cards” might make a nice “starter list.”

(As a matter of fact, since everyone with a handgun in Clark County has to register it, how could there be a gun there if there’s no blue card registered to that address? Or is Metro finally going to admit their only-in-Clark registration scheme is so porous as to be worthless, harassing only the law-abiding?)

Or does all this apply only in “predominantly black neighborhoods”?

The only deadly shooter involved with this family recently was Officer Bryan Yant. Has anyone handcuffed him and sat him in the patrol car and insisted his wife or mother sign a consent form for a warrantless search of HIS home, on threat of hauling HIM to jail?

After Officer Bruce Gentner emptied his 14-round Glock at John Perrin, who was armed only with a basketball, the family submitted a written question to the “master” of the coroner’s inquest, asking whether Gentner had been on steroids at the time. The question was never asked. No warrantless search of the Gentner home to see if the officer was on steroids. Isn’t that a “controlled drug”?

Who else heard this “gunshot”? We’re supposed to believe it’s a coincidence they were looking for a gun in the apartment where Sequioa Pearce went after cops murdered her unarmed boyfriend?

“It seems like it might be related to the Cole incident,” says the family’s attorney, Andre Lagomarsino. “Either this is just a crazy coincidence, or they’re fishing.”

The family buried Trevon Cole in Los Angeles Thursday.

Taxpayers will end up forking over a couple hundred grand to settle this one. Bryan Yant won’t pay a penny. But as this is his second kill, does he at least get a second membership T-shirt in the “Baby’s Daddy Removal Team”? (www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Apr-22-Thu-2004/news/23712343.html.)