Bunkerville prosecution, take three

Sept. 25 retrial date set for two defendants

Before his next trial in Las Vegas, Scott Drexler wants to hug his 88-year-old mother and a grandson he has never met. He also wants to pet his dog.

“I need to go see my mom before she dies,” he said Wednesday, momentarily choking back tears. “I was helping take care of her before I was arrested.”

U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro ruled that Drexler and co-defendant Scott Parker may return home to Idaho while awaiting their retrial. Parker showed up to court Wednesday with a copy of the Constitution tucked in the breast pocket of his white button-down shirt.

Drexler and Parker spent 17 months behind bars while awaiting two trials on 10 felony counts in connection with an armed 2014 standoff in Bunkerville.

The first jury voted 10-2 for total acquittal and wound up deadlocked. A second panel acquitted the pair

RETRIAL

next to busy pedestrian areas. The city is supplying the barriers, which it already owned and placed along the pedestrian mall this week.

The pedestrian mall is public space, but the city has a contract with the Fremont Street Experience to manage the tourist attraction, including the overhead canopy light show.

The barriers lined Fremont Street at Main Street, Las Vegas Boulevard and behind the Fremont Street Experience stages on Wednesday. Several of the yellow barriers also sat at Third Street near Ogden Avenue.

Where downtown streets cut through the five-block pedestrian mall, metal posts already line the sidewalks.

Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman called the installation of the barriers as an immediate reaction to deadly attacks in other cities “proactive, sensitive and responsible.”

“We really wanted something that was impenetrable,” she said. “They’re very, very heavy. You can’t get anything through.”

On Aug. 17, a van hurtled through Barcelona’s bustling Las Ramblas thoroughfare, killing 14 people and injuring more than 120 others. Fremont Street Experience officials requested that law enforcement vehicles be placed at some of the entrances to the pedestrian mall later that day, Hughes said.

Clark County is expediting new security features along the Strip in response to recent deadly attacks in both Barcelona and Charlottesville, Virginia, where cars drove into crowds. About 700 steel bollards are expected to go in by early October along the sidewalk between Tropicana Avenue and Spring Mountain Road, county officials said last week.

In December 2015, a car plowed through a crowd of pedestrians on the Strip, killing one person and injuring 35 other people.

The temporary barriers along Fremont Street pedestrian mall entrances will be in place for a few months, making time to identify permanent security features, Hughes said.

Future permanent security features that are installed along the Fremont Street pedestrian mall will be funded by the private Fremont Street Experience, which is planning a large-scale renovation of the attraction.

In the meantime, the barriers will be beautified by local artists over the next few weeks, Hughes said.

Las Vegas City Councilwoman Michele Fiore suggested local students could showcase their artwork on the new barricades, rather than “hiring outside artists,” she said.

“I think it was smart, preventative,” Fiore said of the barriers. “Anytime something happens outside the city, we learn from that. We don’t want to be a target.”

Contact Jamie Munks at jmunks@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0340. Follow @Jamiemunksrj on Twitter.