Man charged in 2 shooting deaths near Las Vegas Strip found incompetent

A 30-year-old man accused of fatally shooting two women near the Las Vegas Strip was found incompetent to stand trial, according to a report released Friday.

After the determination made by a pair of doctors, Omar Jamal Talley likely will be sent to Lake’s Crossing Center in Sparks for further evaluation, District Judge Jennifer Togliatti said.

Meanwhile, Chief Deputy District Attorney Frank Coumou said prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty against Talley.

“I just have to wait until mental health providers make the appropriate determination that he his mentally competent to go forward with this case,” Coumou said.

Defense attorney William Skupa, who requested the competency hearing last month, said he did not know whether Talley had been previously diagnosed with mental illness.

Californians Melissa Mendoza and Jennifer Chicas, both 27, were fatally shot Feb. 19 at the intersection of Harmon and Polaris avenues west of the Strip.

Talley faces two counts of murder with a deadly weapon, one count of attempted murder with a deadly weapon, one count of discharging a firearm into a structure, one count of discharging a firearm out of a structure, and one count of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person.

Mendoza and Chicas were in a car with Jerraud Jackson at the Miracle Mile Shops parking garage at Planet Hollywood Resort, 3667 Las Vegas Blvd. South, when Jackson and Talley got into an argument, police said.

Parking garage security footage showed Talley getting out of a gray Toyota Camry with California license plates, walking to the driver’s side of a silver Hyundai sedan with Oregon plates and pointing a gun at the driver, detectives wrote in an arrest report.

About six minutes after security called police to report a fight at the garage, police received another call about gunfire at the intersection of Harmon and Polaris.

Police found Chicas lying on the roadway. She was taken to University Medical Center, where she died of a gunshot wound to the chest.

Less than five minutes after the shooting, Mendoza drove the silver Hyundai into The Cosmopolitan’s valet area. She and Jackson both had been shot and were taken to the medical center.

Mendoza died of a gunshot wound to the chest. Jackson was hospitalized in critical condition.

“This kind of wild shooting by Omar Talley from one moving vehicle at another moving vehicle in an occupied and well-traveled area is a hazardous action that could easily have injured and/or killed others who were in the area of the shooting that evening,” Coumou wrote in court papers.

Talley denies shooting anyone and has said the weapon he possessed was a BB gun.

Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Find @randompoker on Twitter.