Nevada mom to plead guilty in crash involving 2 schoolgirls
By KEN RITTER
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A woman who had been accused of trying to kill two schoolgirls she blamed for fighting with her daughter at a Las Vegas-area high school plans to plead guilty to a reduced reckless driving charge, her attorney said Tuesday.
Fatima Maria Mitchell, 36, remained jailed on $250,000 bail ahead of her scheduled Wednesday plea in Clark County District Court to a single felony charge stemming from a March 28 crash near Basic High School in Henderson.
Mitchell’s attorney, Roger Bailey, said his client faces a possible sentence of one to six years in prison, but will seek a mental health evaluation and probation under a Clark County court diversion program.
Prosecutors in the case did not immediately respond Tuesday to messages.
Battery and attempted murder with use of a weapon charges were dropped Monday, when Mitchell agreed in Henderson Justice Court to bypass a preliminary hearing and take the case to state court.
Police alleged that Mitchell used her vehicle as a deadly weapon. It struck a tree, a concrete sign and the two girls, who were treated at a hospital for broken bones but were expected to recover. Their ages were not made public.
Henderson police alleged that Mitchell deliberately drove toward the girls because they had been fighting with her daughter at school.
School police said fights earlier in the day at the 2,400-student campus resulted in citations for four students and a separate arrest of a parent.
The incidents were among several that raised concerns about campus safety during a school year that ended last month at the nation’s fifth-largest school district.
The Clark County school police tallied more than 40 students struck by vehicles on the way to and from school, the confiscation on campus of 31 guns and reports of some 3,000 assaults and fights, Lt. Bryan Zink said.
In April, a high school teacher was attacked and left unconscious in her classroom and a teenage junior was arrested on attempted murder, sexual assault and other charges. The teen’s criminal case is pending.
Charges also are pending against another 36-year-old mother who was arrested in December and accused of using her vehicle to strike at least four juveniles in a group gathered off-campus near a Las Vegas junior high school.
Police said three other children received minor injuries in the incident that escalated after the woman, Jaquitta Madison, confronted a student and his mother, alleging that Madison’s son was bullied at school.
Madison pleaded not guilty and is free on bail ahead of an Aug. 31 preliminary hearing on felony charges of battery with a deadly weapon, the minivan.
Madison’s attorney, Philip Singer, was in court Tuesday and did not immediately respond to telephone and email messages.
