Byron Williams

Byron Williams, 50, died on September 5, 2019, after Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Officers Patrick Campbell and Benjamin Vasquez stopped him for riding his bicycle without a safety light near Martin Luther King Boulevard, chased him after he fled, and restrained him face-down on the ground with a knee on his back. Body camera footage showed Williams saying “I can't breathe” 24 times while handcuffed; when he told officers he couldn't breathe, one replied, “because you're f---ing tired from running.” He went limp and died after being transported. The Clark County Coroner's Office ruled his death a homicide, citing prone restraint as a contributing condition alongside methamphetamine use and pre-existing heart and lung disease. District Attorney Steve Wolfson declined to file charges against any officer in 2020. Two officers were disciplined internally, and both later returned to active duty. No one has ever been criminally charged in Williams's death.

Las Vegas, NV · Clark County

• 2019: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• The bicycle stop, the chase, and the restraint, per Las Vegas Metropolitan Police body camera footage released publicly and the Clark County Coroner's Office ruling.
• Williams said “I can't breathe” 24 times while handcuffed face-down under an officer's knee, per body camera audio; an officer responded that he was tired from running rather than summoning medical help at that point.
• The Clark County Coroner's Office ruled the death a homicide on June 18, 2020, citing methamphetamine overdose as the primary cause with prone restraint, hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, pulmonary fibrosis, and granulomatous lung disease as contributing conditions.
• District Attorney Steve Wolfson's office declined to file criminal charges against any officer in 2020, a decision the family's attorneys criticized as lacking transparency.
• Officers Campbell and Vasquez were placed on administrative leave immediately after the incident but returned to active duty by November 2019; a Las Vegas Review-Journal investigation later confirmed some internal discipline was issued, though the department did not disclose its specifics.
• Williams's family, represented by civil rights attorney Ben Crump, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in July 2021 against the officers, the sheriff, and Clark County; a federal judge in 2024 allowed excessive force and battery claims to proceed to trial, rejecting qualified immunity for the officers' handcuffing conduct specifically, while ruling in the officers' favor on the claim that they disregarded his medical needs.

• Whether the officers' restraint was itself a substantial cause of Williams's death, as the coroner's contributing-conditions finding suggested, or whether his underlying health conditions and drug use were the dominant cause, as the officers argued, was never resolved at any criminal trial since none was brought.
• The specific internal discipline given to the officers involved has not been fully disclosed by the department, beyond confirmation that some form of discipline occurred.
• Why officers did not immediately summon medical assistance when Williams first said he couldn't breathe, rather than after he went limp, has not been fully addressed in any official public accounting.

• Las Vegas Review-Journal — “Byron Williams' death in Las Vegas police custody ruled homicide”
• Nevada Current — “Metro sued in federal court over death of Byron Williams”
• Courthouse News Service — “Excessive force claims survive in case of unarmed Black man killed by Las Vegas cops”
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs