LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — Newly released 911 calls and a police report reveal what neighbors heard and what a suspect told detectives in the shooting deaths of a woman and a toddler in the Southern Highlands neighborhood on March 2.
Metro Police say 22-year-old Zaire Ham shot and killed 20-year-old Danaijha Robinson and 1-year-old Nhalani Hiner as they sat in a parked car near Starr and Dean Martin, waiting for friends who had been pulled over in a nearby traffic stop.
What callers reported
Multiple neighbors called 911 to report the gunfire. Several described hearing as many as 15 shots in rapid succession.
“It was rapid fire,” one caller told a dispatcher. Another said the gunfire sounded “almost like a machine gun — a burst.”
One caller told dispatchers the shooting happened close to an active traffic stop. “The cops had the person pulled over behind my house for a while,” the caller said. “I heard the gunshots, and then the police yelled at the people to get in the car and go.”
Police say the people at that traffic stop were friends of Robinson. Robinson and Hiner were waiting in a separate car nearby when they were shot.
Key lead from a 911 caller
Another caller provided investigators with a lead that contributed to the suspect’s arrest. “After about five gunshots were fired, I looked out the window and saw a black Mazda, CX-5, or of some sort, peel out of the neighborhood,” the caller said.
Police in Ogden, Utah arrested Ham the following day on reckless driving charges. Officers say he was driving the same black Mazda reported stolen out of Phoenix.
Suspect’s account to detectives
According to a police report, Ham told detectives he stole the Mazda in Phoenix and drove it to Las Vegas. He said he believed he was being followed by rival gang members before he opened fire on the parked car.
Ham confessed to the shooting but told investigators he did not know a child was inside the vehicle. Police say he expressed remorse when told a toddler had died.
He faces two counts of murder with a deadly weapon and nine counts of firing a deadly weapon into an occupied vehicle.
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