LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A Las Vegas man is accused of swinging an ax at his neighbor’s car while her young child sat inside, police said.
On Monday, March 13, around 4:15 p.m., police were called to a report of a person with a knife. The incident happened in a neighborhood in the northwest Las Vegas valley near Cheyenne Avenue and the 215 Beltway, Metro records showed.
The victim reported that Christopher Vera, 33, her neighbor, damaged her car with “what appeared to be an ax,” police said. At the time of the call, the victim reported Vera was back in his home across the street.
The victim told police she was loading up her car and had put her daughter in the vehicle, documents said. The child’s birthday is redacted in the documentation, but her year of birth indicates she would be 2 or 3 years old.
The woman then noticed Vera “swinging and striking a handheld ax at her vehicle” while the child was in the car, police said. The woman then grabbed the child and ran into her house as Vera continued striking the car with the ax, police said.
“Christopher is then seen walking away from the vehicle, now carrying away a large cardboard box, which was inside the vehicle containing numerous articles of clothing,” police said. “[The victim] stated she felt in fear for her and her child’s life while Christopher was swinging the ax near them, and believed if she and her daughter wouldn’t have gone into the house, Christopher would have killed them with the ax.”
When police arrived, Christopher came out of his house, and paced back and forth for several minutes, before officers arrested him, documents said.
Vera allegedly told police “he was attempting to rescue [the] child” and that is why he “was hitting the vehicle with an ax,” documents said.
Vera faces charges of burglary of a motor vehicle, child abuse, damaging a vehicle, and assault with a deadly weapon, records showed.
Vera refused to be transported to court from the Clark County Detention Center for a hearing Tuesday. Judge Rebecca Saxe set his bail at $24,000.
Vera was due in court Thursday to hear the charges expected to be filed against him.
