Man arrested in connection with May shooting at Las Vegas club
Las Vegas police in January arrested a man in connection with a May shooting outside a central valley club located in the Boulevard Mall, according to an arrest report.
Marcel Jackson Jr., 26, was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on Jan. 17 after Metropolitan Police Department officers identified him as a suspect in a May 19 shooting that injured one person, according to Jackson’s arrest report.
Officers identified Jackson through video surveillance of the shooting and the use of facial recognition technology, the report states.
Jackson was charged with attempted murder with a deadly weapon, battery with a deadly weapon, being a prohibited person in possession of a gun, buying or possessing stolen property worth more than $3,500, carrying a concealed weapon without a permit and seven counts of discharging a gun into an occupied structure or vehicle, all felonies, court records show.
In 2013, Jackson pleaded guilty to a charge of battery with a deadly weapon in connection with a July 2012 gang shooting in the northwest valley, District Court records show.
About 3:15 a.m. May 19, officers were called to the Casa Grill and Bar at the Boulevard Mall, 3528 Maryland Parkway, after a report of gunfire, the report said. A security officer at the club called police to report that a man in his 20s had fired a gun at a group of people near a parking garage.
Officers that morning also spoke with a man who drove himself to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center with a gunshot wound to his upper left thigh. The man said that as he was leaving the club he heard gunshots, and after he ran to his car he realized he had been shot.
Argument preceded gunfire
When police arrived at the club, they detained three men who were running away, one of whom was Jackson.
Because of “a rapidly evolving and dynamic situation” and officers’ inability to discern the “extent of their involvement in the incident,” the three men were released, the report states.
Police at the scene also found a semi-automatic handgun in some bushes in the mall parking lot, seven spent cartridge cases and a 2001 Ford Crown Victoria that had apparently been struck by gunfire.
One witness said that as he was leaving the club he saw two men in an argument. While he was driving out of the parking garage, he heard four to five gunshots and saw a bullet hit his windshield, the report said.
The security officer told police he saw the argument between a group of people, and he watched as one man walked to a vehicle to “conceal a firearm” and then walked back to the group. As the security officer was on the phone with police reporting the man with the gun, he witnessed the shooting, the report states.
Facial recognition technology used
After Jackson was detained and released by officers, detectives reviewed video surveillance from the mall that showed Jackson shooting a gun toward a “large group of people entering the parking garage” and then running away, the report states. The video was “high definition and is excellent quality,” a detective wrote in the report.
Detectives also used a picture of Jackson that was taken as he entered the club to identify him through facial recognition technology, the report states.
The facial recognition “identified Jackson as bearing a close resemblance to the individual in the picture (taken at the club), believed to be Jackson,” the report states.
According to District Court records, Jackson was sentenced to probation in connection with the 2012 shooting, and his probation conditions included not having gang associations or gang paraphernalia.
Jackson, who was identified in the 2012 arrest report as a member of the Squad gang, pleaded guilty after allegedly shooting at two other men outside a party, the report states.
Jackson remained in jail Saturday on $50,000 bail, court records show. A preliminary hearing in the current case is scheduled for Feb. 5.
Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.
