Ex-UC Davis football player charged in beating man at Las Vegas Strip resort

A California man has been charged with attempted murder in connection with the nearly fatal beating of a man Saturday at a Strip resort.

The Metropolitan Police Department identified the suspect as London Lacy, 24, a former football player at the University of California, Davis.

Lacy, who was a reserve quarterback between 2010 and 2014 at the university, is being held without bail at the Clark County Detention Center on charges of attempted murder and battery resulting in substantial bodily harm.

The beating happened about 4 a.m. Saturday at the Hilton Grand Vacations on the Boulevard, 2650 Las Vegas Blvd. South, according to an arrest report the Las Vegas Review-Journal obtained Wednesday. Police were called to the resort for reports of a man bleeding from his face at the front entrance.

When officers arrived, they found the man bleeding from “the back of the head, mouth, chin and top of his head,” the report read. “He couldn’t fully close his mouth from the right side to the left side. He was screaming in pain.”

Medics also noted the injured man was conscious and breathing, but his breathing was shallow and showed signs of the “death rattle” — a sound badly injured people make as the body tries to take its last breaths.

“Death or coma are typically common events that follow a death rattle,” the report said.

He was taken to University Medical Center’s trauma unit.

According to the arrest report, the man who was beaten was intoxicated, and surveillance footage at the resort’s entrance shows he was in a two-minute confrontation with another man just before the beating.

The footage does not have audio, so it is unclear what the men said to each other, but the intoxicated man appeared to be animated while the other man, who later attacked him, initially appeared calm during the argument, according to the report.

As the confrontation continued, the calm man suddenly grabbed the intoxicated man with both hands and pushed him to the ground, then mounted the intoxicated man and started swinging his right and left hands into the intoxicated man’s face, the report said.

In the footage, the intoxicated man’s body went limp, but the attacker continued. According to the report, he picked up the intoxicated man’s motionless body and threw him to the ground like a rag doll.

“You can see blood splatter from (the man’s) head on the ground from the video coverage,” the report added.

After the attack, the seemingly lifeless man was left on the ground, and the attacker took a few steps back. But he was not done.

The attacker “showed no signs of remorse or pity” as he completed a “punt-style soccer kick” directly into the limp man’s jaw, the report said. Bystanders were “watching in shock as this unfair fight finally ended.”

One bystander was Lacy’s friend, Jabari Howard, who also played football at UC Davis between 2010 and 2014. During the fight, Howard sat on a bench and watched, police said.

Police used the surveillance footage to track the attacker and Howard back to a room in the resort, where police later confronted Lacy, who officers said matched the description of the attacker, though Lacy had showered and changed clothes.

Howard later told police he watched as Lacy struck the man several times, adding that he did not intervene and was not involved. Lacy admitted to police he punched and kicked the man.

Lacy graduated from UC Davis in 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile. The school’s athletic office confirmed his graduation, along with his athletic history at the university.

“I have experience working with students kindergarten through high school, and would also be interested in a career as a Student Counselor,” Lacy wrote on his LinkedIn page. “My intentions are to stay involved in the athletic field while also helping the younger generation achieve their maximum goals.”

When reached by phone, Lacy’s mother denied her son was arrested and declined to comment.

He is due in court Friday morning.

Contact Rachel Crosby at rcrosby@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5290. Find @rachelacrosby on Twitter.