Tag Archives: Kenneth Wayne Cherry Jr

Arrest of Vegas fugitive in LA surprises neighbor

Gail Gaghagen was surprised to learn the man police and FBI agents led away in handcuffs from her luxury apartment complex was a triple murder suspect wanted after a spectacular shootout and fiery crash on the Las Vegas Strip.

Just Tuesday, Gaghagen thinks she saw Ammar Harris sitting alone in the gym at Archview Luxury Apartments in Los Angeles‘ Studio City neighborhood, dressed in shorts and a tank top.

“I just walked by and there was a glass door,” Gaghagen told The Associated Press. “I just I looked at him and he looked at me and that was it.”

Gaghagen said she told the same story to FBI agents she met in the apartment elevator after authorities say Harris, a 26-year-old self-described pimp, surrendered Thursday without incident. A woman in the apartment was being questioned but wasn’t charged with a crime.

“I’m just glad they arrested this man,” Gaghagen said.

Harris’ arrest ended a weeklong multi-state manhunt that began after a Feb. 21 shooting and spectacular, fiery crash that killed three people and injured five on the Las Vegas Strip.

“This arrest is much more (than) taking Ammar Harris into custody,” Clark County Sheriff Douglas Gillespie told reporters Thursday in Las Vegas. “I hope anyone out there watching understands clearly if you live in this city, if you work in this city, or you visit this city and act like this person, we will find you, we will prosecute you, and we will send you to prison.”

Harris, a convicted felon in South Carolina who shows fists full of money on Internet posts and boasts of a high-rolling lifestyle with prostitutes in Miami and Las Vegas, was jailed in Los Angeles pending an extradition hearing Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court.

His arrest ended an intense multi-state search that began after the attack early on a Thursday morning had vehicles crashing like pinballs in a neon-lit intersection home to posh casino resorts such as Bellagio, Bally’s, Flamingo and Caesars Palace.

Court documents allege Harris was driving his black Range Rover SUV when he fired at least five shots into a Maserati sports car, killing Kenneth Wayne Cherry Jr., a rapper who called himself Kenny Clutch.

A passenger in the Maserati, …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

Woman, 22, sought in Vegas Strip shooting, crash

A 22-year-old Miami woman with a history of prostitution arrests was identified Tuesday as a person of interest in a Las Vegas Strip shooting that triggered a spectacular fiery crash and left three people dead.

Police said Tineesha Lashun Howard was in a black SUV with Ammar Harris last week when he fired shots into a Maserati sports car at a self-promoted rapper who investigators say argued with Harris minutes earlier in the valet area of a glassy Strip resort.

Maserati driver Kenneth Wayne Cherry Jr., 27, was mortally wounded before the sports car accelerated and slammed into a taxi that burst into flames — killing the cab driver and his passenger, a businesswoman from Washington state.

Colleagues of the taxi driver posted a $35,000 reward Tuesday for information leading to the arrest of Harris, a 26-year-old felon whom police last year accused of being a panderer.

“We lost one of our own in cab driver Michael Boldon,” said Brent Bell, president of Whittlesea Bell Corp. and the trustee of a trust fund established to pay the reward.

Bell called the death of Sandra Sutton-Wasmund of Maple Valley, Wash., “no less tragic,” and said taxi drivers’ hearts also went out to Cherry’s family in Oakland, Calif.

Investigators have said there were several people in the black Range Rover SUV when the shots rang out. They have only identified Harris and Howard.

Police released several photos of the two together and said Howard also uses the name Yenesis Alfonzo.

A police statement said Howard has been arrested multiple times on charges including prostitution, trespassing, possession of a stolen vehicle and grand larceny. It wasn’t immediately known if those arrests led to convictions.

Police said Howard was considered missing and possibly in danger.

Harris, who was convicted in South Carolina in 2004 of felony possession with intent to sell a stolen pistol and convicted in Atlanta of a misdemeanor marijuana possession charge, is sought in Las Vegas on three murder charges.

Police have said they won’t rest until he is in custody.

“We are confident we know what happened and how,” Las Vegas police homicide Lt. Ray Steiber said Tuesday of the shooting and six-vehicle crash. “All this is about now is locating him and arresting him.”

Police previously released a photo of Harris taken after his arrest last year in Las Vegas in a 2010 prostitution case using the name Ammar Asim Faruq Harris. He was charged with robbery, sexual assault, kidnapping and coercion with a weapon, and police sought charges of pandering by force and felon in possession of concealed weapon charges. Court records show that case was dismissed last June.

Ads with Harris’ photo also were posted Monday on billboards along major southern Nevada freeways.

The image shows Harris with tattoos on his right cheek and words on his neck above an image that appeared to depict an owl with blackened eyes. Police said Harris should be considered armed and dangerous.

Public records show Harris previously lived in South Carolina and Georgia, and told police when he was arrested in Miami Beach last December that …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News