Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Witnesses name alleged leader of 311 Boyz attack

Several teens who witnessed last month's alleged gang attack in Summerlin told a grand jury who the instigator of the melee was, but they were unable to say who threw the five-pound rock that crushed the face of 17-year-old Tanner Hansen, according to transcripts of the testimony.

During a fight at a party in the Canyon Ridge gated community in northwest Las Vegas on July 18, alleged gang members threw rocks and bottles at a truck in which Hansen was riding, witnesses testified. One rock crushed the left side of his face and broke his arm. He had to have his face reconstructed with titanium plates and may be blind in his left eye.

Hansen's mouth was wired shut following his numerous surgeries, but he was still able to recount for the grand jury how the mob attacked him and his two friends, Craig Lefevre, who was driving the truck, and Joe Grill, a passenger. Lefevre and Grill were injured when they were hit by broken glass.

Lefevre and Grill also were among the witnesses who testified for the grand jury, leading to indictments of nine teens, including 18-year-old Steven Gazlay, the alleged ringleader.

Also indicted were Ernest Bradley Aguilar, 17; Jeff Hart, 17; 16-year-old twins Anthony and Brandon Gallion; Matt Costello, 17; Christopher Farley, 18; Dominic Harriman, 19; and Scott Morse, 18, on multiple felony counts.

The 13 charges include attempted murder, battery and coercion, all with a deadly weapon. All nine teens will be charged as adults.

There appear to be additional charges in the works, perhaps related to the alleged gang aspect of the attack.

Harriman's lawyer, Brian Fisher, said he was served late Thursday with a notice of a potential superseding indictment in the case.

The notice, he said, gives attorneys warning to prepare for further action before a grand jury. Fisher said he was not given any further details in the notice as to what potential additional charges could be filed in the case.

Attorneys in the case have questioned whether a gang even exists -- much less their clients even belonging to one -- because authorities did not file gang enhancements to double the penalties of the alleged offenses.

An arraignment for Harriman and eight other alleged members of the 311 Boyz is scheduled for Wednesday in District Court.

Police say the teens are members of the 311 Boyz, a gang authorities say is responsible for the July attack, as well as other acts of violence in northwest neighborhoods, several of which were videotaped.

Gazlay, who spoke to the Sun on Wednesday, said he was present during the melee but said he did not participate in the violence. The 2003 graduate of Cimarron-Memorial High School said he did not know the victims and had no reason to attack them. Witnesses who testified to the grand jury said the opposite, and they said that Gazlay tried to arrange a cover-up of his role in the beating. They said that about 50 to 100 teens had gathered in the back yard of a house that was still under construction and that the crowd later trickled into the street out front.

Each witness described the melee that occurred after several teens surrounded Lefevre's truck in the cul-de-sac.

"People were throwing beer bottles and rocks at them when they were leaving," said one witness, who identified herself as a friend of Hansen's. "I didn't know exactly who was throwing the rocks."

One girl said: "Outside of like the corner of my eye I see people jumping over the gate and people running around. It was very chaotic."

That witness, who identified herself as a former girlfriend of the 311 Boyz, described the group of teens as a mob. She said the teens became particularly unruly when Costello reached through the truck's window and began striking Lefevre.

"You can hear Tanner saying 'Roll up the window, Craig, roll up the window,' and everyone is cheering and screaming, everyone is rooting for Matt," she said.

Hansen described a similar scene. He said shortly after he arrived at the party with Grill and Lefevre, other teens who were at the party began staring them down and calling them names.

Hansen said that when the three teens got in the truck to leave, a large group of teenagers followed them outside and surrounded Lefevre's pickup truck.

He said Lefevre put the truck in reverse so the crowd would move, but one of the teens punched the truck and Farley, Harriman and Gazlay sat on the truck's tailgate.

He said Costello then came up to the window and began punching Lefevre.

"He started punching Craig and he was punching him pretty hard with intent to hurt him pretty bad, because Craig tried to roll up the window and he kept pulling it down and he kept punching him," he said.

Lefevre threw the car in reverse, Hansen said, and the teens began throwing beer bottles at the truck. The truck hit a parked car and another teen as it exited the cul-de-sac. That teen was not injured, police said.

"As we were leaving there were beer bottles, there were so many beer bottles coming at the truck hitting the windshield, hitting every part of the truck, I thought the windshield would break," he said.

Several teens then jumped in a Jeep Cherokee and began following Lefevre's truck, Hansen said. As Lefevre's truck approached the gate to the community, "the Jeep behind us started ramming us," he said.

Lefevre slammed the truck through the gate and raced out of the community with at least two other cars on his tail, Hansen said.

Hansen said he saw about 10 teens lining the street as the truck drove by, but said he did not remember being hit by the rock.

Grill said Lefevre's truck was traveling about 80 miles per hour, with a Jeep Cherokee and a Ford Mustang in pursuit, when they turned a corner and noticed several teens lining the street.

"As we were coming around it I just saw one kid ... and he had a huge rock in his hands, like a boulder," he said.

Grill said the teen, who was wearing all black, was holding the rock with both hands.

"Then I looked to the right and there was a bunch of kids, probably like seven or eight kids lined up against the wall with stuff in their hands," he said.

Grill said he ducked and "as soon as I ducked I heard a bunch of crashes and something hit my head really hard and Tanner's arms wrapped around me and glass went flying everywhere."

"That's when I noticed that Tanner was covered in blood and he was grabbing his arm and screaming in pain," he said. "And I looked in the back and I saw two cars chasing us."

Grill told the grand jury Gazlay was one of the instigators of the attack.

He said Gazlay sat on the tailgate of his truck to prevent him from leaving and then took off his shirt and began calling people on his cell phone.

As Gazlay talked on the phone, Grill said, more cars began pulling into the cul-de-sac.

"I was extremely scared at that point where the kids were already in the back of the truck because I knew we weren't going to get to leave," he said.

Grill said Gazlay then came up to the window of the truck and told Hansen to "shut up or else I'm going to beat your (expletive)."

Grill said Hansen tried to make peace with Gazlay but Gazlay continued to threaten Hansen.

"Tanner said, 'I don't want to fight, I don't know what I did, I'm sorry if I did anything to offend you,"' Grill said.

"And then Steve Gazlay kept on saying, 'Don't say another word, don't say another word, see what happens if you say another word.' "

At his lawyer's office earlier this week, Gazlay maintained his innocence in the attack. He said he was sitting on the tailgate of the truck talking to friends but denied that he tried to prevent Lefevre from leaving.

He expressed regret that Hansen was injured, but said he believed police had "blown the incident way out of proportion." Gazlay's attorney, James "Bucky" Buchanan, could not immediately be reached for comment this morning.

But other witnesses also pointed to Gazlay as one of the people who incited the initial attack on the three teens.

"Everyone said that (Gazlay) was the one that brought them there and he wanted to fight them" one witness testified.

Another witness, who said she knew most of the 311 Boyz, said Gazlay contacted her on the telephone in the days following the incident.

"Steve Gazlay called me and told me to tell everyone that he wasn't there and that he had nothing to do with this case," she said.

She said, Harriman, Gazlay's cousin, "said the same thing as Steve, that he didn't want to be known as being there."

She said Gazlay threatened her and warned her not to tell anyone about his role in the melee.

"He was just like, if you do you know you're going to regret that," she said.

Because of the chaos, however, most witnesses were unable to specify which defendants three rocks at the truck during the melee.

One girl, who said she was a current girlfriend of one of the 311 Boyz, said she saw several teens began jumping over the brick wall and into the street that the truck had to travel down when the teens exited the complex.

She said she saw Hart, Morse, the Gallion twins, Farley and another boy jump over the wall.

"They said, 'Lets try to stop them, let's get them,' and I don't know where they got their rocks from but they got rocks," she said.

Moments later, she said , she saw the teens lining both sides of the street "with rocks in their hands." She said the rocks were "the size of softballs."

She said she saw Farley, Morse, Hart, and the Gallion twins raise their hands to throw rocks at the truck as it passed, but said she did not actually see the boys throw the rocks.

When the teens returned to the cul-de-sac, she said, the boys acknowledged hitting the truck with the rocks, she testified.

"They just all said that they hit the car, they broke the window," she said. "They all said it."

A Metro officer who was called to the scene said he interviewed the teens after the incident and that the teens denied throwing rocks at Lefevre's vehicle.

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