Left inset: Jesus Barraza (Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department). Right inset: Devin Heath (KLAS/YouTube). Background: The Las Vegas area where Jesus Barraza hit and killed Devin Heath during a drag race (KLAS).
A Nevada driver convicted in a deadly Las Vegas street racing crash will avoid jail time, despite traveling at twice the posted speed limit when he struck and killed a 17-year-old who was crossing the street and hoped to become a firefighter.
Jesus Barraza, 21, of Las Vegas, was sentenced Wednesday to probation after a jury found him guilty of reckless driving resulting in the death of Devin Heath. Jurors reached their verdict after about an hour of deliberations, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Prosecutors had reportedly urged the court to impose the maximum punishment, seeking a prison term of 28 to 72 months for Barraza.
Heath’s father told the Review-Journal he was outraged by the judge’s decision, calling the probation sentence “trash.” His son was just months from graduating high school when Barraza hit him in March 2024.
“Let’s all go out and run people over and kill them and just get probation,” Raymond Heath said. “Let’s make Las Vegas as dangerous as possible, because nothing’s going to happen,” he added. “I don’t feel like justice was served.”
Clark County prosecutors also criticized the outcome, saying the sentence sent a troubling message about reckless driving in the Las Vegas Valley.
“The message that was sent is that you can go and drive recklessly on the road here in the valley, go over double the speed limit, you can take a young child’s life and you can get probation,” Deputy District Attorney Corey Hallquist said.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Chad Lexis called the decision to go with probation “disheartening and shocking” in a statement.
“Unfortunately, the judge believed that this case was deserving of probation,” he said. “The victim’s family and the prosecution are extremely disappointed with the sentence.”
In addition to probation, the judge ordered an underlying suspended sentence of 28 to 72 months for Barraza. His probation conditions include a curfew, restitution, maintaining employment, taking a driver’s safety class and completing 100 hours of community service, the Review-Journal reports.
“You are a child and you killed a child and I know it wasn’t intentional,” the judge told Barraza. “This is your one shot.”
Prosecutors said Barraza was drag racing on a street in Las Vegas before killing Devin Heath. “His speed was going up the whole time until he finally collided with the victim,” Deputy District Attorney Afan Tarar said during the trial.
At his sentencing, prosecutors said Barraza was a “danger to this community,” and the way he refused to brake before slamming into Devin Heath showed the “recklessness” of his behavior that night.
After the hearing, Raymond Heath told local CBS affiliate KLAS, “I feel like that was outrageous. That was disrespectful to my son, to our family. He basically just got a slap on the wrist.”
The dad added, “You can go out here, do double the speed limit, cross through two school zones in front of a park with kids playing and kill somebody and all they’re gonna do is say, ‘Hey, don’t do that again.’ I got a dead son, and this man gets to go home.”
The post ‘Kill them and just get probation’: Street racer plows into aspiring 17-year-old firefighter crossing the street and gets no jail time first appeared on Law & Crime.
