A Nevada teenager accused of intentionally mowing down a retired police chief on a bicycle last year has been ruled incompetent to stand trial.
Judge Christy Craig on Wednesday sent Jesus Ayala, now 19, to Lake’s Crossing Center, a maximum security psychiatric hospital in Sparks, according to KTNV.
Ayala was 17 when he and Jzamir Keys, then 16, allegedly stole a vehicle and went on a crime spree that included burglary, another hit-and-run of a bicyclist, and a crash into a car before striking and killing 64-year-old Andreas Probst, CrimeOnline reported. The two were charged as adults.
Probst had served as police chief of the city of Bell outside Los Angeles.
According to court records, medical staff have been working with Ayala since August and believe he has some brain damage, according to KTNV. The pair had been scheduled to go on trial on November 12, but that date may change.
Keys reportedly filmed the fatal crash from the passenger seat of the stolen car, and the video was circulated online until a student alerted a Clark County School District resource officer about it. Investigators used the video to identify Ayala and Keys and arrested them.
“Rarely do we, as the investigators, and rarely does the public have front-row seats to the act that’s about to occur and the suspects’ beliefs and what they’re believing they’re doing at the time,” Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Lt. Jason Johansson previously told KTNV. “I can’t think of too many cases I’ve ever had where you have the audio and the video of what they were thinking and doing before the murder, as they commit the murder, and after the murder. It’s a very emotional video, and you know what you’re seeing and can’t believe it when you’re watching it.”
Body camera footage of the arrest showed Ayala telling an officer that he’d only “get a slap on the wrist” because he’s a juvenile.
The incompetency ruling also puts on hold an attempted murder case against Ayala from 2023 when he allegedly stabbed someone while robbing them, KVVU said.
Keys is due back in court on October 22.
