Report: Man charged in fatal attack near UNLV said victim ‘deserved it’
A man accused of murder admitted to stabbing a man near UNLV and uttering that the victim “deserved it,” according to a Metropolitan Police Department arrest report released Monday.
Emanuel Beccles, 31, told a security officer who detained him after the Thursday attack that Jeff Durroh had “antagonized me on the bus,” police said.
Beccles is being held without bail at the Clark County Detention Center on a count of murder, records show.
Beccles appeared in court Tuesday morning where Justice of The Peace Karen Bennett-Haron assigned him a public defender, Las Vegas Justice Court records show.
Durroh, 57, died at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center from multiple stab wounds, the Clark County coroner’s office said. He was unarmed, police said.
Durroh and Beccles were riding on a RTC bus when they “got into a disturbance,” according to police.
They both stepped off the bus near University Road and South Maryland Parkway and continued the quarrel.
A witness told detectives that the stabbing occurred during a struggle in which Durroh was trying to “detain” Beccles, police said.
Durroh fell to the ground and Beccles continued to stab him, police said.
The witness said he yelled at Beccles to stop, but that the suspect told him “to go away, or he would be next,” according to the arrest report.
An armed security officer working at a nearby burger restaurant, who also witnessed the stabbing, detained Beccles while Las Vegas police officers arrived to make the arrest shortly after, police said.
Beccles told the officers, “yea, I stabbed that (expletive),” according to the arrest report. “He hit me first.”
At the time of the slaying, Beccles was on probation for a 2019 conviction of assault with a deadly weapon, Clark County District Court records show.
In February of that year, Beccles brandished a knife on a bus, and tried to stab a man who suffered cuts to his hand, police said.
He also punched a woman and stole her cellphone and about $100, police said.
Beccles avoided a two-to-five year prison sentence, and was placed on probation, with a judge ordering that he not own knives, and to submit to mental health evaluations, records show.
He is due in court May 3.
Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @rickytwrites.