Beverly Hackett was watching television in her living room at the Eagle Trace Apartments early Thursday morning when the gunfire started — eight to 10 shots, she estimates, erupting outside around 2:30 a.m. One of those rounds tore straight through her vehicle. No one was hurt, but Hackett says she is left shaken, out a repair bill, and demanding answers from the complex she calls home near Nellis Air Force Base in northeast Las Vegas.
Hackett told KTNV that investigators informed her the shots came from an area just a few hundred feet from her apartment, and that police were searching for a suspect. She said the bullet passed completely through her car, and that she could have been killed had she been sitting inside it at the time. Gunfire also damaged appliances outside the building, according to her account to the station.
Landlord Says It Won't Cover the Damage
Hackett said she contacted apartment management Thursday to report what happened, only to be told the complex would not pay to fix her vehicle. She described herself as very shaky and nervous in the aftermath, and said she can't simply pack up and leave because moving is too costly. As of publication, Eagle Trace Apartments had not responded to the station's request for comment on her concerns or on what, if any, security measures it plans to add.
This isn't the first time Hackett has felt compelled to protect herself at the complex. She said she installed her own security cameras around her apartment after a previous shooting and a possible break-in at her unit, and that Thursday's gunfire marks the second shooting she is aware of in the same area during roughly a year of living there. Now she is asking management to add cameras, lighting and increased security patrols near where she believes the shots originated.
A Complex With a History of Gun Violence
Eagle Trace has drawn police attention before. In July 2023, a 2-year-old boy identified by the coroner's office as Jaiangelis Stevenson died after an apparent self-inflicted shooting at the complex near East Craig Road and Las Vegas Boulevard North, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which reported the shooting happened around 6:30 p.m. and was investigated by the Metropolitan Police Department. Years earlier, in February 2015, a man armed with a rifle was shot and killed by a Metro Police sniper at Eagle Trace after firing at officers and into an apartment, the Las Vegas Sun reported, noting officers had been dispatched around 12:20 a.m. following a call about an armed, suicidal man.
Gun violence involving homes and vehicles has also turned up elsewhere in the broader northeast Las Vegas and North Las Vegas area in recent months. A man was killed in a shooting at a northeast Las Vegas apartment complex in late June, with FOX5 Las Vegas reporting the shooting happened just before 4:30 p.m. in the 5300 block of East Craig Road near Las Vegas Boulevard North, where police said two men fled and no arrests had been made. On July 19, surveillance and cellphone video captured a shirtless man firing an AR-15 that struck several homes and cars and was aimed at passing cars in the 6000 block of Yellowhammer Place in North Las Vegas; 8 News Now reported that officers responded around noon Sunday after reports of a man randomly firing an AR-15, with several homes and cars struck and no one hit by gunfire. Police said the suspect may have been impaired and later died after becoming unresponsive in custody. These incidents occurred at different locations and dates than Thursday's shooting at Eagle Trace and are not confirmed to be connected.
For now, Hackett is left waiting — for a suspect to be identified, for her complex to respond, and for some assurance that the next round of gunfire outside her window doesn't find its way inside her home.
