Officer James Manor
When James "Jamie" Manor was a boy, people saw a caring and compassion in him that carried into his days as a Metro Police officer.
Manor graduated from Clark High School in 1999, a star athlete, said Clark High Principal Ronnie Tee Smith.
Smith was among people remembering Manor today after he was killed in a collision while on duty early Thursday morning.
Smith first knew Manor in 1994 and 1995 at Hyde Park Middle School, where the 11-year-old student attended classes. Smith had joined the middle school faculty to help start the Academy of Science and Mathematics at Hyde Park.
"Many times I would see him on campus and go over and talk to him," Smith said. Something about Manor, "the sparkle in his eyes, smiling all the time, a caring individual" caught Smith's attention.
"What I loved in him, he helped others. He always had something kind to say about his classmates, he always helped them with school work," Smith said.
Those qualities served Manor well as a police officer, Smith said.
Like many Las Vegans, Smith got up Thursday morning, turned on the television and heard about the Metro Police officer killed in a collision on West Flamingo Road.
"I opened up the year book for 1999 and I was devastated," Smith said, describing how he connected Manor's untimely death with the smiling student in the photograph. "I said, 'I know that young man.'"
What Manor possessed, Smith said, was "beautiful leadership skills."
Wayne Tanaka, who was Clark High principal when Manor graduated, said he cried when he learned of the officer's death.
"I cried because I could feel the loss for that family," Tanaka said. The retired principal said he knew the entire Manor family, 11 children and a strong, stable mother.
In his senior year at Clark, Manor and his basketball teammates went to their final banquet at the Main Street Station buffet in downtown Las Vegas. Everyone got their food, sat down and began eating, Tanaka said. Except Jamie and two other team members. They were holding hands.
"He was saying grace the way his mother taught him to be, without fanfare," Tanaka said. "The other customers stopped talking."
Watching Manor and each of his brothers play basketball, Tanaka said they never "trash talked," but took responsibility for mistakes after games.
"His leadership was quiet," Tanaka said.
When Tanaka was principal at Clark, he kept Jamie's photo on the wall. James Manor wore a tuxedo in that photo, Tanaka said.
The 28-year-old officer was 13 days shy of celebrating his second year on the Metro Police force.
Before joining the force, Manor worked with the city of Las Vegas Department of Leisure Services in the summer of 2006, said Kelly Schwartz, a spokeswoman with that city department.
Manor worked in a city outreach sports program that went into at-risk neighborhoods for sports programs, Kelly said.
Manor was a ather to a young girl and a neighbor who, with his girlfriend, offered his hand to a family while their dad went to Iraq.
Whenever a Metro Police officer loses his life in the line of duty, the entire department feels it, Sheriff Doug Gillespie said.
Officer Manor was one of two policemen going east on Flamingo Road in separate cruisers in response to a domestic violence call, Gillespie said.
A red 1999 Chevrolet Silverado truck going west on Flamingo and turning left at Ravenwood Drive then slammed into one of the police cars, Gillespie said.
The southeast corner of the intersection has become a shrine of sorts to Officer Manor, the desert dust covered in flowers, stuffed animals, candles, notes and crosses.
The collision occurred at 12:49 a.m. After police received a call at 12:44 a.m. From a 14-year-old girl who said her father was attacking her, police said. When officers arrived at her home, the father was not at the house, police said.
Traffic investigators said that Manor tried to avoid the collision with the pickup truck by braking and steering to the right, but he could not avoid a crash with the left front end of the cruiser striking the Chevy Silverado.
"This was a violent collision," Gillespie said.
A preliminary police report said that the Chevrolet failed to yield the right of way to the police cruiser, which was answering the 911 domestic violence call with sirens on and red lights flashing.
After the crash the pickup truck flipped over and came to rest on its roof in the desert and the police cruiser burst into flames.
The officer was trapped inside the crushed police car for almost an hour before emergency medical crews could extract him and begin cardiopulmonary resuscitation, Gillespie said. He was taken to University Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
The pickup's driver, 45-year-old Calvin Darling of Las Vegas, was also taken to UMC's Trauma Unit for treatment. Darling was booked into the Clark County Detention Center Thursday afternoon for felony driving under the influence with death and failing to yield to an emergency vehicle, Gillespie said.
Darling was an engineer at the Bellagio and had never had a run-in with Metro Police before Thursday's collision, police said.
The Injured Police Officers Fund has established an account for James Manor's family at Nevada State Bank, Account # 602029555.