Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

DA hopes tape leads to higher bail for 311 Boyz

Prosecutors are analyzing a videotape that shows alleged members of the 311 Boyz gang terrorizing northwest Las Vegas neighborhoods with violent fistfights, hoping to use the tape to get the teens' bail raised.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Christopher Laurent has filed a motion asking District Judge Donald Mosley to raise bail for the nine teens charged in an attack that left 17-year-old Stephen Tanner Hansen seriously injured.

Eight of the teens were released from the Clark County Detention Center on $40,000 bonds. One teen, Jeff Hart, 17, is still in custody with bail set at the same amount.

Laurent's motion asks Mosley to raise the teens' bail to $500,000 a piece.

Hart, Ernest Bradley Aguilar, 17, Steven Gazlay, 18, twins Anthony and Brandon Gallion, 16, Mathew Costello, 17, Christopher Farley, 18, Dominic Harriman, 19, and Scott Morse, 18, were scheduled to be arraigned this morning on 13 felony counts in the attack on Hansen.

But that hearing was postponed when District Judge Donald Mosley announced that he would step down from the case due to a potential conflict of interest.

Thomas Pitaro, the defense attorney representing Aguilar, is also representing Mosley in an ongoing custody battle between Mosley and the mother of his 11-year-old son.

Mosley said the case would be randomly reassigned to another judge who hears criminal cases. A new court date has not been set.

Laurent said the videotape, which captures dozens of teens committing beatings in northwest neighborhoods, is an example of why the teens pose a danger to the community.

The tape, which was viewed by the Sun on Tuesday, shows the teens instigating several fistfights with other teens. The brawls appear to take place in neighborhoods, parks and parking lots.

Some of the fights appear to be voluntary or wrestling matches between the teens.

In one scene at least six teens punch and kick another boy, who writhes on the pavement in pain. The teens then drive off in several cars, shouting "311 Boyz."

Another scene shows four or five teens chasing another teen across a busy street. The boy is almost hit by a speeding car as he darts across traffic.

The tape also shows the teens instigating fights between others. In one scene about four teenage girls fight each other in a park while dozens of boys cheer them on.

After one fight, a teen boy raises his friend's hand in victory, proclaiming that the teen has "had 156 fights, zero losses."

Because of the low quality of the tape, which is about 40 minutes long, it was not clear on Tuesday which of the teens appear in the tape.

Laurent described the tape as a "vignette" that shows the type of violence the teens are capable of.

"This is what these kids are about," he said. "It shows their mentality. It shows that they're dangerous."

Laurent said the new judge assigned to the case will likely view the videotape before deciding on the teens' bail.

He said the videotape could also result in more charges. So far not all of the teens on the tapes have been identified.

"There are more kids on the tapes than we have charged, obviously," he said. "If we can identify the victims or the defendants on these tapes, we will bring forward more charges if we can prove them."

Outside court this morning, Gazlay's attorney, James "Bucky" Buchanan, expressed outrage that copies of the videotape had been obtained by local and national media outlets, including CNN News.

He accused the state of trying to prejudice a potential jury pool. He said he plans to file a motion to dismiss the tape, saying its distribution was unethical.

He said the videotape was unrelated to the incident in which the teens are charged.

"This was meant to inflame the public," he said. "The release of those tapes in their entirety is totally wrong."

Laurent said the videotape was filed as an exhibit for a court motion, which made it a public document.

Many witnesses to the attack pointed to Gazlay as the instigator of the attack on Hansen. In an interview with the Sun last week, Gazlay said he was present when the melee occurred, but denied any involvement in the violence.

He also denied that his image was captured on any videotape. Outside court this morning, however, Gazlay admitted that he was seen on the tape.

In one brief scene Gazlay is shown carrying a fire extinguisher. The tape cuts to the next scene before anything happens with the extinguisher.

This morning Gazlay still denied that he participated in any of the fights captured on the tapes.

"It's a quick glimpse of me, that's all," he said.

He said he did not participate in any other scenes on the videotape.

"It's shocking because I didn't even see some of those things until last night," he said.

Buchanan said Gazlay was holding the the extinguisher because the incident was taped around July 4 and he planned to put out fireworks.

Buchanan also downplayed the rest of the violence captured on the videotape.

"Whatever is going on in those tapes is at best a misdemeanor," he said. He called the attack on Hansen, "a misdemeanor rock incident that escalated to something unbelievably big."

The other teens who appeared in court with their attorneys declined comment as they left the courthouse. Brandon Gallion was the only teen who did not appear, as he is being held in juvenile custody on a separate matter.

It was not clear this morning whether those charges were related to 311 Boyz activity.

But police allege the incidents captured on videotape are only a few of the violent acts Gazlay and the other teens committed during the summer months. Authorities are still investigating whether the teens can be linked to other beatings.

Police say the teens planned to sell the tape in a venture similar to "Bumfights," in which producers paid homeless men to fight one another.

In one scene on the tape depicting the 311 Boyz, the person filming encourages his subjects to fight each other.

"There's too much talk, not enough action," he says. "I'm not wasting a (expletive) tape on this."

In another scene a teen in a group of 10 tells another teen that he is no longer welcome in the group because he is a "traitor."

The confrontation appears to take place in the parking lot of a strip mall.

"You're no longer part of our crew," he says.

Another scene shows several teens pulling another teen out of his own home to fight. After about five teens punch and kick them, one of the alleged gang members announces that they've attacked the wrong boy.

One of the teens captured kicking the boy has a hammer lodged in his back pocket.

In some of the scenes, several teens show off tattoos depicting the iron cross symbol, an icon often linked to Nazi Germany.

Officials at Centennial High School, where most of the teens are current or former students, banned clothing and other paraphernalia depicting the symbol last week.

Some students at the school have said the teens have ties to the Ku Klux Klan. Police say the name 311 is inspired by the KKK, as K is the 11th letter of the alphabet.

The teens' attorneys deny that the teens are linked to a racist group.

Most of the teens captured on the tape, both perpetrators and victims, are white, but two black teens are shown fighting each other on the tape.

In one scene the person filming proclaims that an Italian teen and a Mexican teen are fighting each other. That fight appears to be consensual.

In another scene a white teen uses derogatory words for blacks and Mexicans when describing a fight he says he won.

But some parents say the violence captured on the videotape was not the first time the teens staged violent beatings in northwest neighborhoods.

Susan Moran said the several members of the gang attacked her 16-year-old son, Nick Moya. One of the boys, Christopher Morgan, hit her son in the face while wearing brass knuckles, she alleges.

A Family Court judge on Monday sent Morgan to a boy's camp in Elko, after Morgan was declared guilty of a single count of battery with use of a deadly weapon in connection with the attack.

Moran said Moya, a junior at Centennial High School, was giving a friend a ride to his mother's house in a northwest neighborhood on July 7 when 25 to 30 teens surrounded them.

"When they got out of the car there was a couple of cars of kids waiting for them," she said. "Then more cars start coming, more cars and more people."

Moya suffered cuts on his eye and a concussion in the attack. Moran said all of the teens involved were members or associates of the 311 Boyz gang.

Moran said 25 to 30 teenagers surrounded her son and his friend and one of the teens began arguing with her son's friend about his relationship with a girl.

During a fight that followed, she said, Morgan hit Moya several times while wearing brass knuckles but that her son was unable to identify who else punched him.

Moran said she is satisfied that the teen who attacked her son will be punished, but she often wonders whether her son's ordeal with the 311 Boyz is over.

"As a mother, I'm wondering whether there will be repercussions," she said.

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