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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted at 1:20 p.m., Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Caesars Palace gunman surrenders to Las Vegas police

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS — A man who was sought in a weekend shooting that left two men wounded at Caesars Palace casino has turned himself in, police said Wednesday.

Richard Earl Shepherd Jr., 34, of Las Vegas, the man who had been identified as the shooter in the early Saturday gunfire, surrendered with his lawyer, said Las Vegas police Officer Ramon Denby, a department spokesman.

Police said Shepherd was seen on casino surveillance videotape opening fire with a handgun following a fistfight in an elevator lobby at the Las Vegas Strip hotel-casino.

The two wounded men, whose names were not made public, were released from a Las Vegas hospital after treatment of injuries that police said were not life-threatening. One man was wounded in the knee, Denby said, while the other was shot twice in the arm.

The videos were considered evidence, and would not be made public, police and casino officials have said.

Denby said Shepherd got on the elevator after the fight, went to the third floor and retrieved a gun before returning to the site of the brawl and opening fire as he stepped off the elevator.

Police said the dispute may have occurred after several men made a remark to a woman who was walking with Shepherd.

Officers were investigating whether the fight was gang-related, Denby said.

The shooting was the second inside a Las Vegas Strip casino in the last month.

A man police described as emotionally troubled opened fire July 6 inside the New York-New York casino, wounding four people.