How non-shooting deaths involving police slip through the cracks in Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Richard Ybanez always saw himself as his little brother’s protector.

Growing up as latchkey kids on Guam, he and Glenn spent their childhood mostly outdoors, tinkering with bicycles and riding skateboards. If anyone tried to pick on his brother, Richard had his back.

But Richard wasn’t there the morning a Las Vegas police officer pulled over Glenn Ybanez and his girlfriend after she allegedly failed to signal before switching lanes. Glenn, a former Army combat medic studying to be a nurse, had struggled after his return from Iraq. He had two outstanding drug warrants and, according to the police report, tried to run before being tackled by an officer and onlookers. Paramedics transported the unresponsive Glenn to the hospital, where he was found to have a small brain bleed and abrasions, the report said.

He died two days later — on July 4, 2012 — at 37. The medical examiner ruled his death an accident.

In the years since he buried his brother in the Guam Veterans Cemetery on the U.S. territory in the Western Pacific, Richard Ybanez said he continues to believe police played a bigger role in Glenn’s death than they reported.

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