Hearing postponed in Las Vegas casino slaying case
Updated: 9/28/2011 4:23 pm | Published: 9/28/2011 4:22 pm
LAS VEGAS (AP) - An evidence hearing has been postponed for a Florida high school football coach facing a murder charge in the one-punch death of a tourist from Utah in a Las Vegas Strip casino.
A prosecutor told a Las Vegas judge on Wednesday that a police officer scheduled to testify in the preliminary hearing for 38-year-old Benjamin Gerard Hawkins is hospitalized after emergency surgery.
Justice of the Peace William Jansen says he'll wait to set another date when the officer can appear.
Police say Hawkins punched 46-year-old John Massie after Massie made a racial comment while both men were in a restroom early July 6 at O'Sheas Las Vegas Casino.
Hawkins is black. Massie was white and was from Roy, Utah.
He never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead within 30 minutes.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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