LAS VEGAS — The wife of a Florida high school football coach being held on a murder charge said Friday her husband was defending himself when he threw a single punch that authorities say killed a Utah man in a Las Vegas Strip casino.<\/p>\n
Benjamin Hawkins<\/strong>, 37, pleaded not guilty Friday during a brief appearance before a Las Vegas judge. The judge scheduled a Tuesday bail hearing and set a July 21 date to hear evidence in the early Wednesday slaying of John Massie<\/strong>, 46, of Roy, Utah.<\/p>\n Defense attorney Jack Buchanan<\/strong> said he wanted to review security videotapes that police say clearly show the confrontation between Benjamin Hawkins<\/strong> and Massey<\/strong> after the two exited a men’s restroom at O’Sheas Las Vegas Casino, along with the single punch that felled Massie<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Benjamin Hawkins<\/strong> told police that Massie made a comment about a “black man in a yellow shirt” in the restroom. He also said he told Massie<\/strong> to shut up before the two men squared off.<\/p>\n Massie’s<\/strong> actions were aggressive, and he feared that if he turned his back on Massie<\/strong>, he’d be attacked from behind. Benjamin Hawkins<\/strong> whirled and punched Massie<\/strong> once in the jaw, according to a police report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" LAS VEGAS — The wife of a Florida high school football coach being held on a murder charge said Friday her husband was defending himself when he threw a single punch that authorities say killed a Utah man in a Las Vegas Strip casino. Benjamin Hawkins, 37, pleaded not guilty Friday during a brief appearance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8294\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}