$50K bail set for suspect in attack on girlfriend seen on video
A judge set bail at $50,000 on Friday for a man accused of beating and kidnapping his girlfriend in an act caught on a home surveillance video.
Darnell Rodgers, 23, was arrested early Thursday morning, hours after the Metropolitan Police Department released the video in which a woman was seen crying while she ran to a house screaming for help near Warm Springs Road and the 215 Beltway.
She banged on the front door before a man ran to her from a car, kicked her and dragged her by her hair into a white four-door sedan before taking off.
“This is a murder waiting to happen,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Christopher Laurent said in court Friday. “He’s a danger. He’s got a hair trigger.”
Police said the woman in the video was not hospitalized and the couple’s month-old baby, who was in the car at the time, was unharmed.
In setting bail, Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Ann Zimmerman considered the child.
“When you have children you don’t get to go out on New Year’s Eve with a 1-month-old, you know what I mean?” she said.
Rodgers replied: “Yes, ma’am.”
After the surveillance footage was released, tips from the public led to Rodgers’ arrest, police said.
The judge called the video “horrific to watch” and said, “I don’t know what kind of future the mother and the child have to look forward to if that’s the way it’s going to be.”
Deputy Public Defender Mandana Divanbeiki told the judge that Rodgers works as a manager at Hilton Grand Vacations and has “no prior criminal record whatsoever.”
Zimmerman also ordered Rodgers to stay away from the victim.
Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Find @randompoker on Twitter.
