A 16-year-old Las Vegas boy known to friends and family as “Buddah” was shot and killed after going to check on a cousin caught up in a dispute, according to his mother. Steven Carroll Jr. played football and basketball, as noted by KSNV News 3, and instead of preparing for another season, his family is now planning his funeral.
Mekala Hal, Carroll's mother, told KSNV that her son went to check on his cousin, who was involved in a dispute with her child's father. He never made it back home, Hal said. The outlet reports she is pushing back hard against how the shooting has been characterized publicly, insisting her son had nothing to do with the violence swirling around him that night.
“People are portraying this as gang violence and it's not gang violence. My baby is innocent,” Hal said, according to the station's report. Steven Carroll, the boy's father, described his son as someone who loved people, the same account notes. Delona Partridge, speaking on the family's behalf, said Black children should not be associated with gangs and gun violence, and urged anyone with information about the shooting to come forward to police.
What Police Say Happened
The shooting happened on October 2, when the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department says officers heard gunfire around 10:17 p.m. near South Main Street and West Charleston Boulevard and found three gunshot victims. One of those victims was pronounced deceased at a nearby hospital, according to the department's news release. Detectives determined that a physical altercation broke out among several people before an unknown male produced a firearm, shot multiple people, and fled the scene.
Four days later, on October 6, police identified and arrested a 17-year-old juvenile in connection with the shooting. The teen was booked into Clark County Juvenile Hall on a charge of murder with a deadly weapon along with two counts of attempted murder with a deadly weapon, per the department's statement. Metro has said the investigation remains ongoing.
A Family Asking for Accountability, Not Revenge
Partridge said the family wants justice for Carroll but is explicitly rejecting the idea of retaliation. “We don't want street justice. We want justice for Buddah,” she said, as reported by the station. The family is asking anyone with information about the case to contact police rather than take matters into their own hands.
Friends and family plan to gather Sunday at 6 p.m. for a candlelight vigil in Carroll's memory at Mater Academy East. A barbecue and bake sale fundraiser to help cover funeral costs is set to begin at noon Saturday near Owens Avenue and H Street. The family has also set up a GoFundMe to support funeral expenses, though further details on that campaign were not available. Andre's Family Mortuary and Cremation has posted an obituary for Steven Carroll Jr., dated October 17, as reported by Andre's Family Mortuary and Cremation.
The Numbers Behind a Violent Year
Carroll's death comes even as Las Vegas-area homicide numbers have been trending downward. Metro logged 90 murders in 2025, down from 115 in 2024 and 142 in 2023, according to data reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Counting all homicides in its jurisdiction, excluding fatal police shootings, Metro recorded 117 in 2025 compared with 136 the year before.
The newspaper's reporting also found that juvenile homicide victims in North Las Vegas fell from five in 2024 to three in 2025, while juvenile suspects dropped from five to just one over the same period. As of that reporting, four homicides from 2025 within Metro's jurisdiction remained unsolved. For Carroll's family, those citywide trends offer little comfort as they wait for answers in a case that took their son while, they insist, he was simply trying to look out for a relative.
