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North Las Vegas man targeted Black people after losing job, police say

Updated March 1, 2023 - 5:40 pm

After Hunter Holman lost his job at a Las Vegas call center in May, he allegedly attacked a Black family with his car, used racial slurs, threatened to shoot other Black people and left a severed goat’s head behind in an extended stay hotel.

Holman, 27, of North Las Vegas, is facing two felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon motivated by bias or hatred toward the victims in a July incident when he allegedly “randomly picked out a Black family, almost ran them over and indicated he wanted to kill them,” according to the Metropolitan Police Department.

“The Black male adult had to fight off Holman and stabbed Holman to protect his family,” police wrote in an arrest report.

On Feb. 22, Las Vegas police learned from the FBI in Arkansas that Holman was suspected of threatening to kill African Americans at a fitness center in Little Rock with an AR-15 rifle on Feb. 9.

After searching the department’s database, police found complaints from June 2022 of racial slurs, harassment and death threats allegedly made by Holman against employees at Extended Stay of America hotels at 1550 E. Flamingo Road and 3045 Maryland Parkway, leading to his arrest Thursday on suspicion of two gross misdemeanor counts of hate crimes.

Call center firing

According to detectives, Holman’s behavior started soon after his May 16 termination from his job at a call center at 1515 E. Tropicana Ave. He started sending text messages claiming to be Jesus and part of the FBI, and used racial slurs while making harassing phone calls to the call center, police said.

On June 2, police said they received complaints that Holman showed up at the call center, made racial slurs at a manager, threatened to sexually assault another manager, circled the parking lot doing donuts in his car and sent threatening texts to employees.

In September, Holman checked out as a guest from the Extended Stay on Maryland Parkway, where the manager reportedly found “a goat head in the freezer along with an extensive collection of knives” in Holman’s former apartment, police said.

The manager told police that Holman made several menacing calls and “when (Holman) got the impression (the manager) was a white male, the caller invited him to join his group stating he is the king of KKK.”

Holman is set to appear in Justice Court for a status check on March 30 for the hate crime charges. He is scheduled to appear in court again on May 24 for the charges related to the July incident.

Contact Jeff Burbank at jburbank@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0382. Follow him @JeffBurbank2 on Twitter.

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