KEN RITTER
Associated Press Writer

LAS VEGAS - A state fire marshal found dead after exchanging gunfire with police during a Thursday standoff at his house had been fired and rehired as a highway patrol officer, recently split with his wife and had a separate home shadowed by foreclosure, property records and a state official said.

"He was doing a good job at the fire marshal's office," Jerry Hafen, Nevada state Department of Public Safety director, said after Eric Thatcher, a 38-year-old former trooper, was found dead in a two-story home in a hillside Henderson neighborhood about 15 miles south of the Las Vegas Strip.

Henderson police spokesman Todd Rasmussen said it was not immediately clear if he was killed by police or took his own life.

Thatcher had been a highway patrol trooper for six years and a state fire marshal for three years, Hafen said.

DPS officials were aware that Thatcher and his wife recently split, the agency director said, "but whatever personal things in his life that might have led to this didn't reflect in his work."

Rasmussen and Clark County Coroner Michael Murphy declined to immediately identify the dead man.

Several gunshots were fired from the house as officers arrived about 11:30 a.m. in the Anthem neighborhood, Rasmussen said, including shots that hit neighboring houses and a police car.

Rasmussen said he heard no reports that officers returned fire before neighbors were evacuated, police surrounded the two-story house, and crisis intervention officers tried to contact the man inside.

Rasmussen said more gunfire was heard inside before a SWAT officer fired at least one shot toward the house. Police entered later and found Thatcher dead.

"At this time, we need a coroner's investigation to determine if the officer's shot caused the death, or whether it was self-inflicted," Rasmussen told The Associated Press.

Police were initially summoned to the home on Auchmull Street by another man who had been inside the house but left when the homeowner fetched a gun, Rasmussen said. That man told police the homeowner was depressed and possibly suicidal.

Hafen confirmed Thatcher was the NHP trooper fired in early 2005 over allegations of excessive force in the arrest of a Las Vegas man in a hit-and-run crash investigation, and rehired in 2006 after a hearing officer found a lack of evidence for the dismissal.

A Clark County District Court judge in February 2008 awarded Thatcher about $30,000 in back pay.

Property records show Eric and Malissa Thatcher bought the three-bedroom house in Henderson's Anthem neighborhood in May 2008. They paid almost $360,000.

The pair also own at least two other properties in Henderson, records show. One is a three-bedroom home bought last September for $169,000.

The other, a four-bedroom home they bought for $120,000 in 2001, was placed in default April 1, according to records at the Clark County recorder's office.

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Associated Press Staff Writer Oskar Garcia contributed to this report.

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