Watch: Suspect who attacked judge attack spits on corrections officer

Body camera footage shows the suspect being escorted by multiple officers who were preparing to search him outside of his cell; the video showed the suspect turning to the right and spitting in the face of one of the COs

February 21, 2024 09:30 AM

By Katelyn Newberg
Las Vegas Review-Journal

LAS VEGAS — Newly released body camera footage shows a man spitting on a corrections officer moments after he was seen in a viral video launching himself at a District Court judge and attacking her last month.

Deobra Redden, 30, was indicted earlier this month on charges including attempted murder, battery, extortion by threat, intimidating a public officer, and willful or wanton disregard of the safety of persons. He also faces a charge of an unlawful act regarding bodily fluid, after police said he spit on a corrections officer at the Clark County Detention Center shortly after he was taken into custody on Jan. 3.

Body camera footage released by the District Court last week shows Redden being escorted by multiple officers who were preparing to search him outside of his cell. The video showed Redden turning to the right and spitting in the face of one of the officers.

The footage quickly cut off as the officers appear to force Redden into the cell. According to Redden’s arrest report, the officer who was spit on said that Redden’s saliva got into his eye.

District Judge Mary Kay Holthus testified during a grand jury hearing this month that Redden flung himself at her after she heard a courtroom marshal pull out his handcuffs to take him into custody.

At the time, Redden was being sentenced on an attempted battery charge, and Holthus had said that she planned to send Redden to prison rather than grant him probation.

“I rolled under my bench and just fetal positioned and waited for it to be over,” the judge testified, according to transcripts of the hearing.

Redden is accused of hitting Holthus in the head and pulling out a clump of her hair. It took multiple people to pull Redden off of Holthus, and a courtroom marshal who ran after him busted his head open after tripping into the judge’s bench.

The marshal also suffered a dislocated shoulder.

Photos of the courtroom that prosecutors have filed as evidence showed blood splattered across paperwork and a table behind the judge’s bench.

After Redden was arrested, he also told corrections officers at the jail that he “tried to kill the judge today,” and that the judge “had it out for him,” an officer wrote in his arrest report.

Redden is set to appear in court again on Feb. 29.

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