There have been a number of bizarre news stories in our city over the past week or so, and this one is certainly up there.
Here's how it went down. Shortly before 10 a.m. last Saturday morning, Metro was called to Arizona Charlie's Boulder when a man who claimed to have an explosive device strapped to his waist entered the casino, beer-in-hand, walked up to security, and lifted his shirt to show the alleged bomb.
Richard Sellers handed his beer to the supervisor and, according to his arrest report, informed security that they had five minutes to evacuate the place. "Someone put this on me and said if he didn't win $1,000 in five minutes, he was going to blow up the casino," he said, according to his arrest report.
Somehow, we understand, security was able to negotiate him out of the casino and onto a grassy area outside before Metro and their SWAT team arrived. The parking garage and surrounding areas were evacuated and placed on lockdown, and after two hours the suspect was finally taken into custody and the device, which turned out to be a non-invasive defibrillator, was removed.
Before he was finally restrained, Sellers had repeatedly asked officers to shoot him, Metro reported. Initially, he also pretended that he and his family were involved in a hostage situation, but he later admitted this was untrue. "I gave it a shot, you know. I just wanted to see if I could get some money. I (expletive) up," the police report states he said.
Sellers was booked at the Clark County Detention Center on suspicion of making a terroristic threat, a felony, and burglary and extortion. He has a previous criminal record, which includes being sentenced to three years in prison for manufacturing or importing dangerous weapons in 1995. According to the report, Sellers was identified by a Southern Nevada Homeless Transition Services identification card and he later claimed he had no memory of last Saturday's events and denied ever having entered the casino.
