Slain Vegas officer saluted as family man, mentor to many

By KEN RITTER
Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Family members and colleagues saluted a 23-year veteran Las Vegas police officer, father and mentor to many on Friday, after he was shot and killed this month in the line of duty while responding to an early morning curbside domestic violence call.

Poster-sized photos showing a smiling Truong Thai in his police uniform, at home and on his boat lined a stage also bearing his flag-draped casket at an arena-sized Henderson church filled with hundreds of mourners.

In a department with more than 4,000 sworn police officers, Thai was identified as the only one from Vietnam.

“Thai’s life revolved around the service of others. He found joy and fulfillment in this,” Officer Greg Hilton said, sniffing back tears as he described his 49-year-old former partner who was born in 1973 and moved to the U.S. before joining the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department in 1999.

“Always trying to help. Always trying to mentor and coach. Always trying to make people better,” Hilton said. “This was Thai to the core.”

Officer Carlos Carreon, who first partnered with Thai four years ago, said he used to ask during long overnight shifts why Thai didn’t seek a promotion, or retire, or take an assignment less demanding than scuffling with suspects on dark streets and in shadowy parking lots.

“He told me, ‘No. That’s not my thing,’” Carreon recalled. “’Besides, I can’t keep all my overtime if I promote.’”

Carreon remembered Thai talking about coaching volleyball, deep sea fishing and his love for his daughter, Jada, now 19. Carreon said he was surprised to learn that Thai spoke Spanish fluently. He said Thai told him he picked it up while patrolling the city’s predominately Latino areas.

Carreon and Hilton recalled that when Thai was proudest he would break into what both characterized as a “cheesy” grin.

Thai was shot through his ballistic vest early Oct. 13 and mortally wounded while he and Officer Ryan Gillihan exchanged gunfire with a man who police and prosecutors say used a high-powered handgun firing military-grade 7.62-caliber ammunition while driving away from the scene of the domestic battery call a few blocks east of the Las Vegas Strip.

Gillihan and the alleged shooter’s wife escaped injury. But police said the suspect, Tyson Hampton, 24, also wounded his mother-in-law in the leg. Gillihan, 32, a police officer since 2017, is on paid leave following the shooting.

Hampton was arrested in his vehicle several blocks from the shooting scene and remains jailed pending a Nov. 1 court date on multiple felony charges including murder and attempted murder. He has not yet entered a plea in the case.

Thai was the first Las Vegas police officer killed by gunfire in the line of duty since October 2017, when Officer Charleston Hartfield was among 58 people shot and killed while attending an outdoor concert on the Las Vegas Strip — the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Thai’s niece, Janet Thai, told the audience at Central Church in Henderson that her uncle encouraged her to try a police explorer program and challenged her in volleyball games even though she said he acknowledged she was “void of athleticism.”

“Thai totally called me out on that,” she said. But she said she learned “dedication, integrity and duty,” enrolled in a high school ROTC course, served as a U.S. Marine, and went on to work at the prosecutor’s office in Morris County, New Jersey.

“Thai had a knack. A gift,” she said. “He had this uncanny way of encouraging you when you lacked the confidence, assuring you when you doubted yourself, and believing in you when you had lost faith.”

Thai’s brother, Thuong Thai, a firefighter, said he was humbled and proud of honors that Truong Thai was receiving and the support his family got from police and the Las Vegas community.

A long funeral procession carried Thai’s body along closed area freeways, down the casino-lined Las Vegas Strip and past the famous “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign to the church for bagpipes, an honor guard and rifle-firing salutes. Local television stations livestreamed the proceedings.

“I know that Thai would have been proud to know that his fellow brothers and sisters would carry on his activist drive, his attitude,” Thuong Thai said. “He always wanted to be a police officer. I believe that was his true calling.”