Reality TV personality denies involvement in Las Vegas Strip shooting

Reality television star Tasha Brooke Malek wants everyone to know she’s a bad girl, but she’s not that bad.

After a high-profile shooting and fiery crash on the Strip that killed three people, Las Vegas police may have mistakenly circulated Malek’s photo as they search for a different person of interest.

Malek stars in the Oxygen Channel’s “Bad Girls Club: New Orleans.”

Police are searching for shooting suspect Ammar Harris, 26, a self-proclaimed pimp, who was driving a black Range Rover involved in the Strip altercation.

Homicide investigators named 22-year-old Tineesha Lashun Howard, also known as Yenesis Alfonzo, as a passenger.

A Wednesday email, however, included photographs of Howard and her look-alike Malek, although Malek isn’t mentioned by name.

“Not me.” Malek tweeted several times Tuesday in reference to being the passenger in Harris’ vehicle on Feb. 21.

Late Wednesday night, police announced Howard is no longer a person of interest in the case, but they didn’t explain why.

The circulation of the photographs roused Malek’s more than 28,000 Twitter followers.

“is this you with the pimp who killed 3 innocent people in Vegas?” one follower asked of a January 2012 photograph on Malek’s Twitter site that does show her with Harris.

Since police sent the email with Malek’s photo, they also have circulated photographs of at least three other unidentified women in their search for Howard.

It is unclear whether police want to speak with these women or whether they have mistaken them for the dark-haired, dark-eyed Howard.

Las Vegas police did not respond to questions seeking clarification from the Review-Journal.

But police sent an email Wednesday saying that another photographed woman — not Malek or Howard — was accidentally included in their email on Howard.

Police said that the photo of the third woman was included because they found a downloaded picture of her on Harris’ computer and that she is not considered a person of interest in the case.

Contact reporter Tara Verderosa at tverderosa@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0264.