Three bound over for trial

As he testified in Justice Court on Wednesday, Nolan Toms wore the same Budweiser NASCAR jacket he had on the night his 14-year-old brother was killed.

It was Feb. 11, when the Toms brothers and their friends were getting off a bus near their home, and 18-year-old Jesse Eugene Gonzalez was driving past with his buddies, 19-year-old Joseph Tarin Regala and 17-year-old Alex Garcia. Regala saw the jacket and wanted it, so he asked Gonzalez to pull a U-turn so that they could go ambush the other group and take the jacket at gunpoint, according to police.

As the Toms brothers walked from the bus stop on Stewart Avenue, near Lamb Boulevard. Regala and Garcia positioned themselves on opposite sides of the intersection at Page Street and Stewart Avenue. As the boys walked by, Garcia asked them to empty their pockets.

"We just kept walking because we thought it was one dude and he was drunk or something," Nolan said.

Then they saw Regala coming toward them from across the street, holding a .22 caliber rifle.

Nineteen-year-old Nolan Toms ran first. His little brother, Davonta Toms, and Derrick Nelson, also 14, followed behind. A fourth friend ran in the opposite direction.

Nolan Toms testified that the gunman pursued him, his brother and Nelson. He said he ducked on the ground every time he heard a gunshot. As bullets whizzed by his head, he jumped over a wall and waited until he heard the shooter get into a car parked on Page and Stewart and take off.

"I hopped back over the wall and saw my brother lying on the ground. I seen he had been shot in the back of the head. That's when I called the ambulance," Toms said.

Justice of the Peace Abbi Silver ruled Wednesday there was sufficient evidence to send Regala, Garcia and Gonzalez to trial in District Court on murder, attempted murder and attempted robbery charges.

The three defense attorneys representing Garcia, Gonzalez and Regala tried to have their clients' statements to police thrown out.

Police had noted that all three defendants told them Gonzalez was the driver, Garcia told the boys to empty their pockets, and Regala was the shooter.

Regala told police he fired one round in the air before chasing the boys and firing at them, police said.

"He intended to shoot low, but one of them must have gone high," said Las Vegas police Detective Robert Wilson, who testified Wednesday about his interrogation of the defendants. "He said it wasn't his intention to kill anyone."

Regala's lawyer, Karen Connolly said Wilson coerced the teen into finally telling a version of events police wanted to hear. She accused Wilson and another detective of playing "good cop, bad cop" with Regala. The other detective sat silently while Wilson was aggressive and then stormed out of the interrogation room, turning Regala over to what appeared to be a better option in the "good cop."

Connolly asked Wilson if he told Regala "he was a piece of shit? ... You told him he would rot in jail and you would enjoy that?"

"I did say that," Wilson said, adding that the goal was to get Regala to tell the truth.

All three defendants waived their right to be present for the preliminary hearing following their attorneys' advice, so after a brief appearance prior to witnesses being brought into the courtroom, the trio was taken back to the jail.

Their lawyers kept them away from the witnesses because none of them have identified their attackers.

"Nobody's ever done a line-up," said Brian Bloomfield, Garcia's attorney, prior to the hearing.

Garcia, whom Bloomfield argued had no idea a slaying was going to occur that night, is the only one who has had a bail amount set. It is $400,000.

Wilson said police never had the victims look at a photo line-up, because they were confident about the case.

"We already had confessions from every one of them," he said outside of court. "There wasn't any real need for it."