A motorist arrested last week with an AR-15 rifle, two other guns and a half-empty bottle of vodka in his car had previously expressed the desire to commit “suicide by cop,” according to a Metro Police arrest report.
Metro Police Crisis Intervention Team officers in December encountered Jeremy Karsh during a call about a “distraught person,” in which someone was hospitalized, according to the report and police spokesman Officer Larry Hadfield.
Hadfield could not say who was hospitalized or provide additional details about the previous incident because of privacy laws and the incident not being criminal in nature. Dispatch logs show that Metro had responded to an attempted suicide call at a west valley residence.
Firefighters responded about 3:30 p.m. Thursday to the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant in the 3000 block of Desert Inn Road, near McLeod Drive, to find Jeremy Karsh “passed out” on the driver's side of the vehicle, which was running, police said.
Officers arrived, surrounded the car with their weapons drawn and removed the rifle before handcuffing Karsh. The interaction was captured on video and uploaded on Facebook.
Police also found two handguns, multiple ammunition magazines and spent bullet casings throughout the car, police said. He told officers he had two vodka drinks at home and had driven to get some food.
Las Vegas police have the authority to remove weapons from a person whom they deem a danger to themselves or others, Officer Hadfield said. But it wasn’t immediately clear what actions Metro took in December or whether Karsh possessed the weapons then.
The guns, which Hadfield said were impounded for evidence after last week’s incident, were legally registered, but it wasn’t clear to whom, and Karsh was not a prohibited person.
“His speech was slurred and mumbled, but he was polite,” an officer wrote in the report. A records check determined that Karsh had a history of “suicidal tendencies, particularly suicide by cop,” according to the report.
Karsh was booked at the Clark County Detention Center on one count of DUI and three counts of possession of a firearm by an intoxicated person, police said. He’s since bailed out.