Eight teens between the ages of 13 and 17 have been arrested in the video-recorded fatal mob beating of a 17-year-old Rancho High School student that has now been ruled a homicide, Las Vegas police announced Tuesday, the Las Vegas Review Journal reports.
Metropolitan Police Department Lt. Jason Johansson described the video as “very graphic” and “very void of humanity" and said that police have heard that the beating, in an alley steps away from the high school, was a fight set up after a theft from Lewis or his friends, of a pair of wireless headphones, and possibly a marijuana vape pen. After the fight, video shows Lewis was on the ground, unresponsive and unconscious.
The video, Johansson said, shows about 10 people “kicking, stomping and punching our victim Jonathan as he’s on the ground, not defending himself” until he was unconscious. The FBI’s Criminal Apprehension Team helped with the arrests. While two suspects are still at large. But the eight teens arrested to date will be charged with murder, said Undersheriff Andrew Walsh. Jonathan Lewis died Nov. 7 at University Medical Center, his father said. The Clark County coroner’s office on Tuesday afternoon said that Lewis died from complications of multiple blunt force injuries and that his death has been ruled a homicide.