Woman sought in Las Vegas Strip shooting
The fatal shooting and crash left three people dead
Police said Tuesday they are looking for a woman in connection to a fatal shooting and crash on the Las Vegas Strip that left three people dead.
They are calling 22-year-old Tineesha Lashun Howard, aka Yenesis Alfonso, a “person of interest.”
“She’s not considered a suspect,” said Laura Meltzer, a spokeswoman with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. “She’s somebody detectives would like to speak to in connection with this event.”
Police say Howard has been identified as being inside a black Range Rover at the time shots were fired from the vehicle. She was described by police as 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighing around 120 pounds and having green eyes and dark hair.
She is listed as a missing and possibly endangered person from the Miami area.
“This case needs to be solved,” Meltzer said, urging Howard to come forward.
Police had previously identified Ammar Asim Faruq Harris, 26, as a suspect in the shooting. He is at large, though a black Range Rover police say he was driving early Thursday morning has been impounded.
Police consider Harris to be armed and dangerous and say he has an extensive criminal history, CNN affiliate KLAS reported. He has several tattoos, including a small heart-shaped one below his right eye and a large one of an owl that covers his neck and part of his chest.
A woman who said she is Howard’s mother told CNN that her daughter and Harris have been girlfriend and boyfriend for about a year.
Miladys Garcia said she recognized Harris from an image that police issued but that she knew him by a different name. Garcia said she hasn’t been in contact with her daughter since the shooting.
She provided CNN with a phone number for Howard, who she said was 21 years old, not 22. A call Tuesday went straight to voice mail, and the mailbox was full.
Police have released several photographs of Howard and Harris. They pose together in some; one is identical to the Facebook profile picture of a woman identified as “Yeni Alfonso.”
That page says she is from Naranja, Florida, attended Homestead High School in Homestead, Florida, works as an entertainer at Playmates Cabaret and lives in Las Vegas.
A man identified as Emilio Alfonso has posted two messages on her page since Sunday.
“Yeny, call me now,” read one in Spanish.
“You’ve got me worried. Call me. You are very important. Everything has a solution,” read the other, also in Spanish.
In the shooting and crash, Kenneth Cherry, an aspiring rapper known as Kenny Clutch, was driving his Maserati around 4:20 a.m. Thursday when someone in a Range Rover shot at his car as it headed north on Las Vegas Boulevard. Cherry, who was shot in the chest and arm, later died at a hospital.
The Maserati continued into the intersection with Flamingo Road and collided with a taxi, which caught fire, killing cab driver Michael Boldon, CNN affiliate KVVU said.
A passenger in the taxi—identified by the Clark County coroner’s office as Sandra Sutton-Wasmund, 48, of Maple Valley, Washington—also died. Her death and the deaths of Boldon and Cherry have been ruled homicides, according to the coroner’s office.
The fire closed a block and a half of the Strip near some of its biggest draws: Caesars Palace, the Bellagio, Bally’s and the Flamingo. Police collected surveillance video from the casinos.
CNN’s Greg Botelho contributed to this report.
Dana Ford | CNN
LOS ANGELES, Calif.—Ammar Asim Faruq Harris, 26, the suspect in a shooting and crash that left three people dead last week in Las Vegas, has been arrested in Los Angeles, the FBI said Thursday.
FBI spokeswoman Lourdes Arocho said Harris was apprehended by the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department Fugitive Task Force at noon in the North Hollywood section of the city.
Harris, who police said has an extensive criminal history, was considered armed and dangerous.
LAS VEGAS, Nev.—Police are on an “intense” and “extremely focused” nationwide manhunt for the occupants of a black Range Rover at the center of a shooting on the Las Vegas Strip that claimed three lives.
The incident involved a Maserati that was shot at and subsequently crashed into a taxi, which caught fire.
The driver of the Maserati, whom family identified as Kenneth Cherry Jr., died at a hospital. The taxi driver and a passenger also died.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Authorities today identified a man who was fatally shot by Inglewood police after he allegedly smashed the windows of eight squad cars with a sword in a police station parking lot.
The shooting occurred Saturday night, after the man damaged the vehicles using a sword that was thicker and heavier than a machete, police said. The dead man was identified as Charles Curl, 46, of Los Angeles, coroner’s Assistant Chief Ed Winter said.
LANCASTER, Calif. — A registered sex offender accused of using a cellphone camera to capture video up hundreds of women’s skirts in Lancaster and elsewhere in Los Angeles County was in custody and facing prosecution, authorities said.
PALMDALE, Calif. — A man was killed today in a two-vehicle crash in the Littlerock area near Palmdale, authorities said.
The crash occurred at about 4:30 a.m. on Avenue T at Dunford Avenue, according to the California Highway Patrol.
According to the preliminary investigation, Jose Olivarez, 41, of Littlerock, was driving a 1998 Plymouth Voyager east on Avenue T when he turned left at Dunford Avenue “directly into the path of a westbound 2006 Chrysler,” the CHP said in a statement.
