Jury to hear murder charges in killing of ‘innocent bystander’

A jury should decide on murder charges against Michael De Angelo Scott, accused in the fatal shooting of a 24-year-old woman police called an “innocent bystander,” a Las Vegas judge ruled Wednesday.

Cassandra Lee Cassidy of Las Vegas was just arriving for work at a recovery clinic when she was killed on April 17.

Scott, 21 was booked into the Clark County Detention Center a month later. He faces multiple charges, including one count each of murder, conspiracy to murder, illegally discharging a gun and two counts of attempted murder.

Senior Judge James Bixler decided Wednesday that prosecutors have enough evidence to present those charges to a jury.

Scott is the second person accused of the death. The other suspect is a 15-year-old boy identified in court Wednesday only as “Chris” or “Bro.” His name has not been released because he’s a minor, but he was booked into the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center after his mother saw him on a video circulated by Metro and turned him in.

Authorities are expected to decide within a few weeks whether he will be tried as an adult.

Cassidy’s mother, Carol Kirkum, who attended Wednesday’s proceeding with family and friends, told reporters she hopes both the teen and Scott face justice.

The three-hour preliminary hearing was the first time Kirkum had seen Scott in a courtroom.

“Your first thought is, ‘Why is he breathing the air, when my baby doesn’t get to breathe any more?’” she said. “It’s just horrifying to see him sitting there.”

Around 10 o’clock on the night of the shooting, Cassidy had just arrived to her shift at a house in the 1300 block of Westwind Road, near the intersection of West Charleston Boulevard and Lindell Road, owned by Solutions Recovery Inc., a drug and alcohol recovery center.

After parking her car, she encountered Raven Gordon and another young woman who asked for help and the use of her cell phone, Gordon testified Wednesday.

Gordon and a friend had been in a car with Scott and the teen, but were running from them after a quarrel, she said.

The teen stepped out of the two-door white Volvo, pulled out a revolver and started firing, Gordon said. Scott fired several rounds from a .25-caliber semi-automatic handgun from inside the car, according to testimony from Jehru Petty-Williams, who was in the back seat at the time.

Only Cassidy was hit. She was pronounced dead at University Medical Center.

Scott, Petty-Williams and the teen visited Jacqueline Lopez’s house after the shooting and the teen told her he “shot a white girl,” according to testimony. Scott told her he shot at the girls, but didn’t know if he hit anyone, she said.

On the opposite side of the courtroom from Kirkum, Scott’s family and friends watched Wednesday’s hearing, some in tears, others shaking their heads.

“Michael is a good guy,” Scott’s cousin, Danielle McCoy, said after the judge made the ruling. “He’s never been in trouble. He is well loved. He is innocent.”

Kirkum, who wore her daughter’s school identification cards and ashes around her neck along with teal ribbons pinned to her shirt, recently set up a crowd funding site to help pay for the car her daughter was driving the night she was shot.

“Cassandra has a car that she worked so very hard to save her down payment for, qualify for loan on own , then worked full time while going to school full time,” Kirkum wrote on the site. “We want to pay off that loan and keep her car and treasure it as a valued memory of our Sunshine.”

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