Two Las Vegas teenagers who are accused of leaving a bicyclist to die after they intentionally hit him with a car are now linked to two other hit-and-run cases that day, police announced Tuesday.
Lt. Jason Johansson of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said at a news conference that investigators found evidence the two teens who allegedly struck 64-year-old Andreas Probst on Aug. 14 also intentionally hit another cyclist and a white Toyota Corolla.
Both teens are now charged with murder in connection to Probst’s death, police said.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department
The teen suspected of being the driver was taken into custody on Aug. 14 after police received a report of a stolen vehicle. The other teen was arrested after a shocking video circulated on social media and picked up by local news outlets appeared to show the two teens in the car as it struck Probst, a retired police chief from Bell, California. One of the teens can be heard saying, “Yeah, hit his ass.”
Johansson said investigators received the video from a school resource officer who was approached by a student. Within hours of reviewing the video, police began investigating Probst’s death as a homicide instead of a bike accident. Authorities then obtained a search warrant for a teen’s home, where they said they found more evidence linking the pair to the theft of the car they were driving and the hit-and-runs.
Taylor Probst, Andreas Probst’s daughter, also spoke at the news conference on Tuesday and described her father as an honorable man who served 35 years as a police officer but died from a “senseless murder.”
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Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department
Right-wing figures criticized local media coverage in the immediate aftermath of Probst’s death — before the viral video footage became public. Some began a harassment campaign against a Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter who had actually directed a source to report the video to the police. Others said the coverage was anti-white. (The teenagers in the video appeared to be Black, and Probst was white.)
Probst’s daughter addressed the right-wing outrage by saying that her father’s death was a random act and should not be used to fuel a political agenda.
“We as a family in no way feel that Andy’s murder was based on race or profession,” Taylor Probst said. “It was a random act of violence. We ask you to not politicize or use Andy’s murder to fuel political agendas or to create cultural wars.”
Clark County District Attorney Steven Wolfson told reporters on Tuesday that he is “confident” that the two teenagers will be tried as adults based on state law.
“In the criminal justice system, if you are a minor and you are eligible to be charged with the crime of murder, you are automatically sent to the adult system,” Wolfson said.
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