LAS VEGAS (AP) — Authorities have identified a patron who died at an after-hours nightclub in a Las Vegas Strip casino after trying to subdue a man who shot two club employees.
Kenneth Brown, 40, was fatally shot after wrestling the gunman to the ground early Monday at Drai’s After Hours inside Bally’s hotel-casino, according to charging documents filed Tuesday.
Benjamin Frazier, a 41-year-old ex-convict with a history of alcohol-related arrests at Las Vegas Strip clubs, faces murder, attempted murder and weapons charges in the deadly dispute.
Witnesses told police that Frazier started shooting because he was upset he didn’t get a refund of a $30 admission charge.
A club manager was wounded in the arm and a security guard was shot in the stomach before the Brown tackled Frazier as he tried to leave the club with a gun in his hand, Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie said. Brown was shot several times during a struggle and died.
The sheriff called Brown a hero.
“Security professionals and a heroic patron who lost his life prevented what could have been even more death and injury,” he said.
Brown recently moved to Las Vegas from Los Angeles, his mother, Norma Sattiewhite, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He worked as a club promoter and stand-up comedian.
Police and a family member, attorney Bob Beckett, said Frazier was treated for serious head injuries he suffered when he was subdued.
Frazier was convicted in 1997 of felony assault with a deadly weapon in a plea deal stemming from a June 1996 incident at a Las Vegas club. His attorneys said he completed a sentence of two years’ probation, performed community service and took impulse control classes.
Beckett said Frazier is his cousin and had been working at a car dealership in recent months.
Police said the club, which has a capacity of about 500 people, doesn’t have metal detectors at the entrance.
The club, open Thursdays through Mondays from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m., has been an after-hours attraction at the heart of the Strip since the late 1990s. It moved earlier this year from the former Bill’s Gamblin Hall, which is undergoing renovations, to Bally’s across the street.
Drai’s is expected to move back to the renovated and renamed site next year.
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