Trevon Cole
On June 11, 2010 21 year old Trevon Cole was killed by the LVPD in his own apartment with his nine months pregnant fiancée present. The LVPD’s search warrant brilliantly misidentified Trevon Cole of Las Vegas with a different Trevon Cole from Houston, Texas. The other Trevon Cole had a different middle name, was seven years older, is three inches shorter and a hundred pounds lighter. The only criminal record the now dead Trevon Cole had was for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle as a teenager.
Trevon Cole paid for this ineptitude with his life. He was shot and killed by a Las Vegas narcotics detective with a checkered history of controversially using his fireman, as he knelt on his bathroom floor, hands in the air.
Of the six-member narcotics squad involved in the late evening raid on the tiny one-bedroom apartment, Yant was the only one who claimed that Cole made a “furtive movement.” Interestingly, he was also the only one carrying an assault rifle.
Unlike Yant’s comrades, who were armed with department-issued handguns, the former Marine decided to bring along his personal AR-15. This isn’t to say that the co-assailants earn points for restraint, given that the entire raid was an exercise in overkill. Trevon Cole’s needless death was an outcome nearly as predictable as the result of the perfunctory coroner’s inquest, which ruled that the murder was a “justifiable” exercise of lethal force.
Face-to-Face’s Jon Ralsto says metro wants to settle the Cole’s civil lawsuit for $1.7 million. Cole’s family filed the suit in April 2011. Named in the lawsuit was Officer Bryan Yant, who pulled the trigger, killing Cole. Also named was Yant’s supervisor Sergeant John Harney and Sheriff Doug Gillespie. A coroner’s inquest ruled that officers were justified in that shooting. Yant’s only punishment….he was reassigned to a desk job.
The LVPD did find a small unspecified amount of pot. Cole had no criminal record, had achieved an Associate of Arts degree, and was working as an insurance adjustor while working on a political science degree at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. The bottom line is a young & productive member of society needlessly had his life cut short by an overzealous & incompetent police department over a little marijuana. As taxpayers, we get to pay for the cost of this failed war on drugs, the hush money to the victim’s family, and to continue paying the salary of the cleared officer with the history of questionable shootings & tactics.
Source Articles & Pictures:
- http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2010/aug/18/coroner_probing_marijuana_raid_k
- http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2010/jun/18/drug_raids_las_vegas_narc_mariju
- http://www.mynews3.com/content/news/local/story/Settlement-proposed-in-police-shooting-death-of/BbHxGSHFG0mGOFc-Aq9yHg.cspx?rss=3269
- http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2010/08/showtime-syndrome-strikes-las-vegas.html
By:
Alexander Martin. Permalink: 
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