Landlord 'shoots two tenants dead and leaves a third in a critical condition after argument over unpaid rent'

A Las Vegas landlord allegedly shot two of this tenants dead and left another in a critical condition with nine gunshot wounds after arguing with them over unpaid rent, police said.

The suspect, a man in his late 70s, then had a standoff with police before he was arrested on Tuesday. 

The suspect's identity was not immediately released. 

Lt. Ray Spencer, of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, said the dispute began over unpaid rent.  

'We don´t know the specifics, but information from witnesses is that it´s all over money not paid for their portion of the rent,' Spencer told The Associated Press.

Las Vegas police responded to a shooting on Chicago on Aug. 10, 2021. , Las Vegas police said Tuesday. (Glenn Puit/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)

The shooting took place on Las Vegas's 200 block on W. Chicago Avenue, near the Strat Hotel and the Sahara Las Vegas. Police arrived at the scene at around 12:30 a.m.

Police found one of the women was dead outside a pink one-story home after midnight, with the SWAT team finding the other woman dead inside. 

One of the women left the three-bedroom house and returned before the fatal confrontation, Spencer said. 

The wounded man was found coming out of the door, police said. 

The names of the dead women and the wounded man, all in their 50s, were not immediately made public.

The man was hospitalized in critical condition and was expected to survive, Spencer said.

Police confiscated a 9mm handgun and the homeowner was being questioned. He was expected to be jailed pending a court appearance on murder and attempted murder charges, Spencer said. 

The shooting, apparently involving a landlord-tenant dispute, left two renters dead, one critically wounded with nine gunshot wounds and their landlord in custody as the suspect 

Disputes over missed rental payments and a nationwide moratorium on evictions amid the pandemic have become heated issues. 

In Nevada, at least 259,000 people were estimated to be in danger of losing their homes for nonpayment of rent after Nevada ended its moratorium in July, according to expert testimony in the Nevada legislature. 

More than 11 million are at risk nationwide.  

The original evictions moratorium was set for March, but the federal government continued to extend the deadline. 

In June, Las Vegas landlords filed more than 4,000 evictions, The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. 

With thousands facing eviction at the start of August, the Nevada Legislature recently passed Assembly Bill 486, which helps tenants facing eviction notices as a well as allows landlords to access Covid-19 rental relief fund. 

The U.S. has also set aside more than $45 billion in financial assistance for rental payments since the pandemic began, but only $3 billion have been distributed so far, NBC reports. 

Caitlin Cedfeldt, a staff attorney at Legal Aid of Nebraska, said the process to receive aid can be fairly long and difficult. 

She added that the process can be needs both landlords and tenants' cooperation, which is difficult during an elongated period of resentment during the pandemic. 

'Usually at this point the relationship is so strained that the tenant may not want to contact, or has a hard time getting a response from, the landlord,' Cedfeldt said. 

U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, who previously declared the nationwide eviction moratorium to be illegal, said on Monday she was skeptical of the new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention order but said she may lack the power to do anything about it

U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, who previously declared the nationwide ban on evictions to be illegal and called for its end in July, accused the Biden administration of using legal 'gamesmanship' to try to renew the moratorium on evictions. 

She suggested the administration was just trying to buy time for the $45 billion funds to be distributed. 

Friedrich, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, ruled in May that the CDC lacked authority under federal law to order a pause on evictions. 

President Biden came under intense pressure from the left of his own party to do more to help renters struggling to pay bills during the pandemic.

And last week CDC director Rochelle Walensky signed an order that continued the moratorium until October 3, saying that evictions could be 'detrimental' to public health virus control measures. 

However she narrowed the criteria, saying it would apply to counties experiencing 'substantial and high levels' of transmission.

Even so, officials admitted they did not know whether they would be able to defend the measure in the courts.

President Biden himself suggested that it was a delaying tactic.

'I can't guarantee you the court won’t rule that we don't have that authority but at least we'll have the ability to, if we have to appeal, to keep this going for a month - at least,' Biden told reporters.