Man arrested in fight with kids released on electronic monitoring
A Las Vegas judge ordered a man released on electronic monitoring Tuesday after he was arrested in connection with a fight involving juveniles outside a middle school last week.
Jose Montes, 39, turned himself in to school police on Monday, defense attorney James Gallo said during his initial court appearance Tuesday. In 2021, Montes was briefly misidentified as a suspect in a child homicide, but the accusations were dropped after Montes’ son was found alive.
A Las Vegas woman had called police and said that a child’s body found off of state Route 160 between Las Vegas and Pahrump was her son, whose father was Montes. The homicide victim was identified as 7-year-old Liam Husted, who was murdered and left on a hiking trail by his mother, Samantha Moreno Rodriguez.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Aaron Nance asked for Montes to be held on a $20,000 bail on Tuesday, arguing that the fight outside Dell H. Robison Middle School on Wednesday was an “extreme level of violence” and that other juveniles tried to help the child that was attacked.
“The victim was beat to the ground, punched, kicked, and the beating went well beyond anything that is reasonable in a civilized society,” Nance said.
Clark County School District police Lt. Bryan Zink said Monday that during the altercation, Montes chased after the alleged victim as he tried to run away.
A woman identifying herself as the victim’s mother posted a video of the altercation to Facebook last week, which showed a crowd gathering around a group of students fighting in the street. An adult man then ran in and began repeatedly kicking and punching one of the children in the head.
Gallo argued that Montes’ son had been “intimidated and harassed” for six months by one of the juveniles involved in the fight and that his family had filed multiple police reports about the ongoing conflict. Montes was at the school to pick up his son on Wednesday when he saw his son getting “jumped,” Gallo said.
“My understanding is the victim doesn’t even go to this school and came there just to confront my client’s child,” Gallo said.
Gallo declined to comment on the case after Tuesday’s hearing.
“The court does have some serious concerns regarding the extremely violent nature of the charges in this case, and the fact that there are multiple videos where the victim is either in a fetal position or is attempting to flee and you are in the video continuing to kick the child, punch the child and batter the child,” Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Rebecca Saxe said Tuesday.
Saxe also noted that Montes had no history of felony or gross misdemeanor convictions and that there were “some potential extenuating circumstances” to the case. She ordered Montes to be released from custody but placed on medium-level electronic monitoring.
He was also ordered to stay away from the alleged victim and his school.
“While this case is pending you are ordered to have absolutely no contact with the victim in this case, do you understand?” Saxe asked.
“I do,” Montes replied.
Montes is facing charges of child abuse, battery, contributing to the delinquency or neglect of a minor, interfering with a student attending school and coercion with physical force by an adult with the assistance of a child, court records show.
He was ordered to appear in court again on Thursday.
Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.