He said he couldn’t stop thinking about how he might not have made it home to his family that day. A security guard wrestled with the suspect for his loaded weapon during one of the heists. Jurors also heard from casino employees who said they are still haunted by their encounters with the robber. They said he had a unique set of skills and knowledge about robberies as a law enforcement officer and used that to his advantage. “And my coworkers’ lives.Throughout the weeklong trial, prosecutors had portrayed Rogers as a gambling addict who had grown increasingly desperate under a crush of debt when the robberies targeting casinos off the Las Vegas Strip began.

How he had to fight for much more than just the gun during that brief struggle. How he might not have made it home to his family that day. He said he couldn’t stop thinking about how his entire life could have changed in a split-second had he not been able to pry the gun out of the robber’s hand. Soon after the robbery, Baker began looking for a new job outside of security work. Eventually, he said, he was able to peel the revolver away. On the stand, Baker gripped the barrel of the weapon and showed the jury how he pressed his thumb against the hammer, hoping to keep the gun from going off. Now, in the courtroom, prosecutors were handing Baker the silver revolver they said Rogers used that morning. When Tommy Baker joined the pile, he said he saw the suspect’s hand on the weapon and his finger around the trigger. None of the security guards were armed when they confronted Rogers, prosecutors said.

“Are you willing to die over this?” Poutasi recalled the suspect yelling as more security guards arrived, piling on top of the robber in a fight for control of the weapon. She said he grabbed Dougherty by the shoulders “and threw her down” to the floor. On the stand, McGrath said she and her coworker, 63-year-old Priscilla Dougherty, were getting ready to open the sportsbook when a man in dark clothing jumped behind the counter, announcing he had a gun. These are “minor details which aren’t as conclusive as the government would like,” he said. In his opening statement Tuesday, he asked the jury to give less weight to what he called “so what?” evidence, like the color of the vehicles used in the robberies. Rogers’ attorney, Richard Pocker, has said the government’s evidence in the two robberies before the heist at the Rio is weak. A department spokesperson said last week that Rogers has been on unpaid leave “without police powers,” pending the outcome of the trial, which began Monday and is expected to last through the end of the week. At the time of the heists, Rogers was employed by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department as an active-duty patrol officer.

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