Las Vegas police have arrested 5 men in connection to a possible hate crime committed at the Hard Rock hotel-casino on June 17.
Darnell Morgan, who is a traveling nurse based in Phoenix, filed an incident report stating that around 5:30 p.m. he was leaving a Rehab pool party when he was approached by a group of men calling him gay slurs. The slurs included terms such as "F-----," "F----- a-- n----," and "Gay b----."
He says he laughed off the verbal attacks but was then approached face-to-face by one of the men as he walked towards the rideshare pickup area.
According to his report, the man asked, "What the f--- are you laughing at?" and he replied, "The fact it's 2018 and you're still calling people f-----s." That is when he says he was punched in the face.
He says began to fight back in self-defense but the man's friends swarmed and jumped him. At that time his friends had exited Rehab pool and joined the fight. He says the skirmish lasted about 15 minutes before Las Vegas police broke it up. Morgan sustained a cut to the nose that required treatment at Desert Springs Medical Center.
The official Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department arrest report was very similar to Morgan's account.
It said officers responded to a fight in the parking lot of the Hard Rock hotel-casino at 6:11 p.m. and found a large group of people being uncooperative with security. At that time they placed five people in handcuffs due to their unruliness.
They then found Morgan bleeding from his nose and were told his side of what occurred. He named Eidryce Marks as the man who initially confronted him in the parking garage. In the report, police say that 10-12 men surrounded Morgan and one pushed him to the ground. Another man then hit him in the face with a closed fist. That is when it says multiple people began to hit and kick him.
Police say Morgan was at Rehab pool with a group consisting of mostly women and they were unable to help defend him when the attack occurred.
Morgan identified the five men in custody as the ones who assaulted him.
Keron Cumberbatch, Eidryce Wildermarks, Rashon Wiggins, Damion Campbell, and Aaron Bobgoldman were the five men arrested after the incident.
Officers say because the men attacked Morgan due to his sexual orientation and yelled slurs while attacking him, they are facing both battery and hate crime charges.
Morgan told 13 Action News that he has spoken to one of the men and that he apologized for his actions. Morgan said that he offered his forgiveness and he has decided to ask the district attorney to drop the charges.
