Ammar Harris, the suspect the Feb. 21 Las Vegas Strip shooting and car crash that killed three people, is escorted into the courtroom at the Regional Justice Center Wednesday, April 17, 2013.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013 | 4:27 p.m.
Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against Ammar Harris, the suspect in a February shooting on the Las Vegas Strip that killed one person and caused a car crash that killed two others.
A special panel in the Clark County District Attorney’s Office reviewed the case, weighing aggravating factors, whether a jury would be inclined to impose the death penalty and whether a conviction is likely to stand up to appeal.
District Attorney Steve Wolfson filed the notice of intent to seek the death penalty after the committee made its recommendation.
Wolfson had announced that he was likely to seek the death penalty shortly after Harris, 27, was arrested in Studio City, Calif., following a weeklong, multi-state manhunt.
Harris is accused of shooting into a Maserati driven by Kenneth Cherry Jr. early Feb. 21 while driving on the Las Vegas Strip in a Range Rover.
Cherry and a passenger, Freddy Walters, were struck by the gunfire, Metro Police said. Cherry’s wounds caused him to lose control of the car, which ran a red light at Flamingo Road and crashed into a taxi. The impact caused the cab to explode.
Three people were killed and are listed as victims in connection with the three first-degree murder counts Harris faces: Cherry; the cab driver, Michael Boldon, 62, of Las Vegas; and cab passenger Sandra Sutton-Wasmund, 48, a businesswoman from Maple Valley, Wash.
Walters survived and is the victim named in the indictment in connection with an attempted murder count.
Tehran Boldon, the younger brother of Michael Boldon, said “bravo,” when he heard the news that the district attorney would seek the death penalty.
Harris has “shown no remorse, and he needs to be made example of. Hopefully it will send a message to people like him that think it’s a game,” he said. “I would hate to think that he could outlive me when I don’t think he should be living at all.”
Harris previously was arrested in 2010 in Las Vegas on charges of pandering, kidnapping, sexual assault and coercion.
The charges later were dropped, but a witness re-emerged after Harris’ arrest this year, and Harris was indicted in April on three counts of sexual assault and one count of robbery related to the 2010 arrest.
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