Two Las Vegas teenagers accused of leaving a bicyclist to die after intentionally hitting him with a car are now linked to two more hit-and-run cases that day, police announced Tuesday.
Lt. Jason Johansson of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said at a Press conference that investigators found evidence of the two teenagers who allegedly beat a 64-year-old man Andreas Probst on August 14 he also intentionally hit another bicyclist and a white Toyota Corolla.
Both teenagers are now charged with murder in connection with Probst’s death, police said.
The teenager suspected of being the driver was arrested on August 14 after police received a report of a stolen vehicle. The other teenager was arrested after a shocking video circulated on social media and collected by the local media appeared to show the two teenagers in the car as it struck Probst, a retired police chief from Bell, California. One of the teenagers can be heard saying: “Yeah, kick his ass.”
Johansson said investigators received the video from a school resource officer who was accosted by a student. Within hours of reviewing the video, police began investigating Probst’s death as a homicide rather than a bicycle accident. Authorities then obtained a search warrant for a teenager’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 Tuesday’s news conference and described her father as an honorable man who served 35 years as a police officer but died in a “senseless murder.”
Right-wing figures criticized local media coverage immediately after Probst’s death, before the viral video went public. Some started to harassment campaign against a Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter that he 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 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 killing was based on race or profession,” Taylor Probst said. “It was a random act of violence. We ask that you do not politicize or use Andy’s killing to fuel political agendas or create culture wars.”
Clark County District Attorney Steven Wolfson told reporters Tuesday that he is “confident” the two teenagers will be tried as adults under state law.
“In the criminal justice system, if you’re a juvenile and you’re eligible to be charged with the crime of murder, you’re automatically sent to the adult system,” Wolfson said.