Four teenagers who allegedly took part in the mob that fatally beat classmate Jonathan Lewis near their Las Vegas high school made their first appearance in adult court on Friday, days after police called the viral attack “very void of humanity.”
Dontral Beaver, 16; Gianni Robinson, 17; and Damien Hernandez, 17, and Treavion Randolph, 16, face murder charges in connection to Lewis’ death on Nov. 7.
Randolph had just turned 16 on the day of the deadly beating, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
All four teens will face their judgment together.
Lewis was brutally beaten near Rancho High School on Nov. 1 when he fought with an unnamed peer over a set of wireless headphones, which were allegedly stolen from him or one of his friends, Las Vegas Homicide Lt. Jason Johansson said during a press conference Tuesday.
After the first punch was thrown, a mob of students swarmed Lewis, pushing him to the ground and violently beating the teen in an attack Johansson described as “very void of humanity” and “heinous.”
Lewis died from blunt force trauma on Nov. 7
His family shared earlier this month that Lewis had been defending a friend who was being bullied.
“One of his smaller friends had something stolen by this group of 15, and they threw the small boy in the trash can, and our son confronted them and he was attacked,” according to a GoFundMe page set up by his family.
Las Vegas Metro Police Department and the FBI identified 10 of the suspects from videos of the heartless beating death of Lewis and arrested eight of the suspects on Tuesday.
The four unarranged suspects, whose ages range from 13 to 17, are currently in the juvenile court system as they wait to be certified to enter the adult court system to face possible murder charges.
In Nevada, a case is automatically moved to the adult system if a 16-year-old or 17-year-old is charged with murder, referred to in the court system as certification.
A Judge can certify children over the age of 14 as adults for any felony offense, including murder, though the process is not automatic, according to the outlet.
The LVMPD is seeking the public’s help in identifying the two other suspects not detained earlier this week, urging anyone to contact either their homicide department or Crime Stoppers for tips.
“I know there’s still two outstanding juveniles, we have four down still within the juvenile system that were not able to be direct file,” Clark County Deputy District Attorney Shanon Clowers-Sanborn said on Friday.
Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson told 8 News Now that other videos of the beating, not currently circulating online, show even more gruesome angles of the attack that led to Lewis’s death.
“At the end of the day, a young man was brutally murdered, and I believe that some of these juveniles will be held responsible,” Wolfson told The Las Vegas Review-Journal earlier this week.
Wolfson is the prosecutor seeking to charge the teens suspected of beating Lewis to death as adults.
Beaver, Robinson, and Hernandez are scheduled to appear in court again on Nov. 21.
