Katie 
Las Vegas, Nevada: Officers responded to an apartment building on Sunday evening on a call of a domestic disturbance where a child had been thrown from a third floor balcony.
On the ground officers found an unconscious 5-year-old girl and transported her to Sunrise Hospital. Reports indicate that she sustained a fractured forearm, pelvis, leg, rib, a possible fractured sternum, and a collapsed lung. Her condition was listed as stable.
Inside the apartment officers made contact with the mother, Angela Matthews, who after learning that her boyfriend had thrown her daughter from the balcony, armed herself for fear of her life and that of her other children.
A confrontation between Matthews and 32-year-old Jarick Jermel Willis resulted in him being shot in the chest. He fled the apartment and was found a short time later by officers and taken into custody.
He was transported to University Medical Center in critical condition. He remained hospitalized on Tuesday and so missed his first court appearance. His bail was set at $150,000 under the condition that he has no contact with the victim and does not go to her address.
Matthews told officers that she had been dating Willis since March of this year but that this was the first weekend he had been to her apartment.
She stated that both of them practiced "African spirituality" and that Willis had made statements indicating that he believed the 5-year-old girl was "full of bad spirits" or "bad entities" and even that she "was a demon."
Matthews became upset and told WIllis to stop speaking of her daughter that way. KLAS indicates that Willis apologized but it was not long before her son started screaming after a commotion in the living room.
Willis was observed on the balcony, and the girl was face-down on the gravel below. Matthews' son said that Willis had thrown the girl from the balcony.
Willis has been charged with attempted murder. abuse or neglect of a child, child abuse or neglect with substantial bodily harm and domestic battery.
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