Cop killers had 3 earlier talks with Vegas police

LAS VEGAS - Las Vegas police said Wednesday that detectives talked on three occasions earlier this year with a married couple who killed two officers in a pizza shop and a good Samaritan in a nearby store Sunday, but they didn't express the extreme antiauthority views that apparently led to the rampage.

After shooting the patrol officers at the restaurant, the couple went to a nearby Wal-Mart, announced they were starting a revolution and shot a man with a gun who tried to stop them before they died by gunfire. Authorities are still investigating what sparked the carnage.

"This continues to be a massive ongoing investigation," said Assistant Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill, who corrected earlier reports that the woman, Amanda Miller, shot her husband, Jerad Miller, when they were cornered in the back of the store.

Jerad Miller was fatally wounded by gunfire from at least one of three officers who fired shots as they closed in on the couple, McMahill said.

McMahill and Sheriff Doug Gillespie said Las Vegas police interviewed Jared Miller in February about threats he made in a telephone call to Indiana motor-vehicle officials about his driver's license being confiscated when he was pulled over near Hoover Dam, about 30 miles east of Las Vegas.

In a recording from the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles, Jerad Miller complains about the insurance issue that led to the confiscation. In the last seconds of the seven-minute call, he tells an operator, "If they come to arrest me for noncompliance or whatever, I'm just going to start shooting people."

McMahill said three veteran detectives closed their inquiry after determining the statement didn't constitute a credible threat.

The Millers also provided written statements to police in early April and late May as witnesses to crimes involving other people at the Las Vegas apartment complex where they lived.

"We determined that nothing stood out," McMahill said. "There was no indication provided by the suspects of their antipolice feelings."