Las Vegas Review-Journal

More candles to light this year

Two casinos in NLV join fireworks party

- By Katelyn Newberg Las Vegas Review-journal

Mwill tell you he has pyrotechni­cs in his blood, suggesting his heart might be pumping a bit faster than usual as he adds several hundred pounds of explosives to the already overwhelmi­ng display in the Las Vegas Valley skies on the night of July 4th.

Sullivan, a chief pyrotechni­cian for Fireworks by Grucci, has produced Station Casinos’ Fourth of July firework shows with his team for 12 years at Green Valley Ranch in Henderson and Red Rock Resort in Summerlin.

PREPARATIO­N

who started as warden in Ely in 2015 and worked his last day Friday. “The protocol is good, and Mr. Dozier, when I left last week, was still very cooperativ­e and wanted to go forward. I’m 100 percent convinced that he wants to go through with this. He’s of sound mind, rational and knows what he’s doing.”

Las Vegas Review-journal requests through correction­s officials to speak with Dozier have been denied, and he has not responded to messages sent through a prison email system.

Filson called the timing of his retirement and Dozier’s scheduled execution coincident­al.

“It was just a good time to get going,” said Filson, who has witnessed two previous executions. He started working for the prison system on

July 2, 1990.

Last month, the state Supreme Court ruled that in a November order, District Judge Jennifer Togliatti should not have denied the planned use of the paralytic drug to execute Dozier.

Togliatti then signed a new execution warrant.

An attorney for the Department of Correction­s has said that the state’s supply of diazepam, an anxiety medication and one of the three drugs in the lethal injection cocktail concocted last year, expired. According to the latest protocol, midazolam replaced diazepam.

Several drug manufactur­ers have refused to sell midazolam for use in executions.

In late 2016, a few months after

Dozier wrote the judge to tell her he wanted his execution carried out, officials in Arizona agreed to stop using midazolam in lethal injections. When they used the drug in 2014, an execution took two hours. Reports of an Ohio execution that used the drug the same year described the condemned man as gasping for air and clenching his fists.

Rose said she was “incredibly concerned and disturbed by the fact that NDOC has decided to substitute midazolamn.”

A Clark County jury convicted Dozier in September 2007 of killing 22-year-old Jeremiah Miller at the now-closed La Concha motel. In 2005, Dozier was convicted in Arizona of second-degree murder in another case.

Before a November execution was put on hold, Dozier had requested figs or dates be included in his last meal, according Filson. Neither the former warden nor Santina would reveal what is on the menu next week.

Asked whether he would remain in Ely on July 11, Filson, who owns a home in Las Vegas, responded: “I’m not sure. I might have the news on. Other than that, it’s a sentence from the court, and it’s the obligation of and duty of the Department of Correction­s to fulfill that sentence. And this one is what we call the ultimate sentence. I have full confidence in the management at Ely and the Department of Correction­s that it will be carried out in a humane and efficient manner under direction from the court.”

Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjour­nal.com or 702380-1039. Follow @randompoke­r on Twitter.

 ?? Erik Verduzco ?? Las Vegas Review-journal @Erik_verduzco Brittany Zastrow, a pyrotechni­cian with Fireworks by Grucci, connects wiring Tuesday for a Fourth of July fireworks show on the top of the parking garage at the Fiesta Rancho in North Las Vegas.
Erik Verduzco Las Vegas Review-journal @Erik_verduzco Brittany Zastrow, a pyrotechni­cian with Fireworks by Grucci, connects wiring Tuesday for a Fourth of July fireworks show on the top of the parking garage at the Fiesta Rancho in North Las Vegas.
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 ??  ?? Savannah Zastrow, left, and Tom Williams, pyrotechni­cians with Fireworks by Grucci, prepare for a Fourth of July fireworks show at the Fiesta Rancho.
Savannah Zastrow, left, and Tom Williams, pyrotechni­cians with Fireworks by Grucci, prepare for a Fourth of July fireworks show at the Fiesta Rancho.

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