On the night of October 21, 2016, a 52-year-old Asian man named Fuli Ji was fatally shot in Las Vegas, Nevada. Originally from Chino Hills, California, Ji was a husband and father to a three-year-old child. He and his wife, Ying Du, had emigrated from China and together they owned and operated Fuli International Travel, a business they founded in 2012. Ji, who had recently become a U.S.
citizen, was in Las Vegas on a business trip, working to build a better life for his family.
The incident occurred outside a parking garage at Caesars Palace. Police responded to calls of a shooting after 11 p.m. and discovered Ji near a van with multiple gunshot wounds. Medical personnel pronounced him dead at the scene. An investigation by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department's homicide section indicated that the shooting took place inside the van, which had been parked for at least a couple of hours before the incident. At the time, investigators had not determined a motive for the shooting.
Following the shooting, police arrested 27-year-old Charles Smith of Las Vegas on the second floor of the parking garage. Smith was subsequently booked into the Clark County Detention Center and faced a charge of murder in connection with Fuli Ji's death.
