Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Victim’s mother testifies police worried him

Daryl Hicks told his mother he didn't feel well the night of Dec. 16.

He was sweating heavily, like he had just been out in the rain, Joyce Hicks testified this morning at a Clark County coroner's inquest.

She was worried and called 911.

"He said, 'Momma, when you call the paramedics they're going to bring the police and they're going to kill me,' " she said.

The police arrived at the house and Daryl Hicks ran.

Daryl Hicks' friend, Eddie Smith, arrived to check on his friend. Hicks had been depressed, Smith said, because he had just found out his girlfriend had been cheating on him.

Smith said he found Hicks outside, "acting scared."

"I grabbed him and hugged him and tried to tell him to calm down so he wouldn't get in trouble,"' Smith said.

Daryl Hicks told him to leave, Smith said. Hicks then bit him on the side of the face, breaking his skin.

When police arrived at the home on Hassell Street, Hicks played hide-and-seek with the officers, darting in and out of his grandmother's house, police said.

Police said he appeared to be under the influence of a controlled substance. Officers subdued him with pepper spray.

Officer Justin Roberts, spokesman for the North Las Vegas Police Department, said at the time that no batons, Taser guns or unusual excessive force was used on Hicks.

Officers said they handcuffed Hicks to keep him still while giving him medical care. But they did not arrest him. While en route to University Medical Center he became unresponsive and was pronounced dead upon arrival.

Those involved in the case are Officers Leonard Cardinale, Anthony Lettieri, Robinson Reed, Richard Rodriguez and Carey Wittwer and Sgts. Anthony DiMauro and Tim Grady.

The coroner's inquest jury was expected to decide today whether the actions of the seven officers that December night were justified, excusable or criminal in the death of the 25-year-old man.

The cause of Daryl Hicks' death was asphyxiation with phencyclidine intoxication, or PCP, as a contributing factor, according to the coroner's office.

The case is unusual because only three people have died of asphyxiation after being restrained by police in the Las Vegas area, said Jim Bowman, of the Clark County district attorney's office. In all three cases, the victims were found to have methamphetamine or PCP in their systems.

The seven officers involved in the incident were scheduled to testify today, as well as two paramedics who responded to the call.

Two of the officers have faced and were cleared in coroner's inquests in prior cases. Cardinale was one of five officers who restrained a combative suspect in 2002. The inquest jury gave the unusual ruling that the suspect, Roberto Arce, caused his own death.

Grady was found to be justified in shooting and killing a man who was holding a knife to his girlfriend's throat in 2002.

Reed shot and wounded an 18-year-old man in August 2003 because the man appeared to be reaching for a gun. The man's family later filed a $5 million lawsuit against the police department.

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