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Sheriff puts officers back to work pending inquests
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Updated: Mar. 28, 2011 | 6:56 a.m.
New Clark County coroner's inquest rules have prompted the Metropolitan Police Department to end a long-standing policy of placing officers involved in fatal shootings on paid leave until cleared by a coroner's jury.
Over the past five months, at least a dozen officers have been placed on routine paid leave after fatal shootings or in-custody deaths. But there hasn't been an inquest in that time, and none is scheduled before late May.
Because of the delay, the department has allowed almost all of the officers to return to work in desk jobs or light-duty assignments in which they have no contact with suspects.
"There's really no reason we need to leave these officers sitting at home," said Kathy O'Connor, chief of staff for Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie. "We're just looking to be as efficient as we possibly can."
O'Connor, a 25-year Las Vegas police veteran, said that for as long as anyone can remember, the department has kept officers off work until after an inquest. The policy, common in police work, is intended to give the officer time for counseling and to recover emotionally from the incident.
But changes in the county's inquest process and delays in its implementation have the department re-evaluating whether it can afford to have officers off for months at a time. Officers now are being evaluated for return to duty on a case-by-case basis while the department develops a new policy.
Both the delay in inquests and the suspension of the leave policy result from last year's Clark County Commission overhaul of the inquest process aimed at improving accountability and openness.
Twenty years ago, inquests were held as little as two weeks after a fatal officer-involved shooting. More recently, the typical interval was six weeks. Now they will take place four to six months after an incident, said Assistant Coroner John Fudenberg.
Inquest jurors also will no longer render verdicts of justified, excusable or criminal. They will merely determine facts, such as who died and when, where and how.
Inquest juries have gone 35 years without rendering a criminal verdict .
The most dramatic change is the addition of inquest ombudsmen to cross-examine officers and other witnesses. Commissioners this month approved seven ombudsmen, including former District Court Judge David Wall. They will represent the family of the deceased and counter the district attorney, who leads the proceeding.
"People didn't believe the district attorney acted as an impartial party in the past," Fudenberg said. "I disagreed with that, but they were accused of being partial."
Because of the ombudsmen, officers probably will not choose to participate.
Chris Collins, president of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, said participation would open up his officers to criminal and civil liability. He said four attorneys all came to that conclusion.
"We warned them, if you will, that if they made this process so adversarial we would not participate," he said.
Inquests into police-involved deaths are highly unusual in America. King County, Wash., uses the system, but in most urban areas the district attorney privately reviews the case to determine if the officer acted legally. Inquests provide a rare glimpse for the public into how, and why, people die at the hands of police. The new Clark County process, for example, requires all hearings to be televised live on the county's public access television channel.
Fudenberg said he expects inquests to resume in late May, and hopes to be caught up by the end of the year.
Eight inquests are in the queue, including those for two people who died after officers used a Taser on them. One involved a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper, five are for Las Vegas police shootings, and one a North Las Vegas police shooting.
While the time between a fatal shooting and an inquest won't shrink, the length of inquests likely will as officers sit them out.
"It's a shame," Collins said. "The process before worked. It was open to the public. And now, in my opinion, the tail wagged the dog and the small vocal minority has taken away what was once an open process."
Contact reporter Lawrence Mower at lmower@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0440.
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@DevilDog and RealityKingpin: I'm an Analyst by trade so forgive me with my stats here... but you debated back at me concerning 7 of 8 US tasers killing citizens, AND my stat of Metro being 7.1 times higher in LEO involved shootings than other cities with 1 million or more.....you countered that with how many criminals, bad criminals, come to Vegas. My statistical mind disproves that, as we'd have the 7.1 x worse crime rate, such as New Orleans, or Philly, but we don't. If the shootings are based on crime, the statistic should be similar: Higher crime would equal higher police violence...BUT IN NO WAY DO THE STATS SUPPORT THAT so your theory dissolves.
If the Police Officers do not want to be held accountable to the public the serve, then I request that Sheriff Gillespie remove the sticker we see on every black and white police car, that says, "Partners with the Community"
@DevilDog...I doubt that going on yet another ride-along with you or any other Metro officer is going to make the job of a cop any more dangerous. While I have actually risked my life to save others and I do know exactly what most cops in this country encounter on a daily basis, that hasn't changed the facts. Just because you think you are in danger doesn't mean you are. Actual people actually die doing dangerous jobs every day and yet you don't hear fishermen, loggers or farmers going on about how dangerous their jobs are. But then brave men usually don't whine about how scary their jobs are. They just do them.
"An increase, yes, but to call that skyrocketing is just another example of police officers lying to themselves and the public about the dangers of their jobs."
bhgs, have you ever had a person shoot at you just becasue of the clothes you wore, or the color of car you drive?
I would assume that you have never had an occupation where you could really get injured or lose your life.
You constantly claim that police work is NOT dangerous, well come ride with me some day, and you would open your eyes when you see the type of folks I deal with on a daily basis.
Sure a cop working in Beverly Hills or on the beaches of California are not in a whole lot of danger, but most cops who work in the rough parts of town, and deal with the multiple felons that move here from California to avoid the 3 strikes laws, are attacked, shot at, and fought nearly daily in Las Vegas.
I know you will not believe it, because you sit safe behind your keyboard and the only violence you see is on your television.
If you faced the dregs of society every day, you might have a little different view of police work as well.
@bghs1986 . . . I do agree . . . RKP is simply a web troll that gets his excitement by annoying other posters. Why do we feed him?
@Jon H....Anyone familiar with RKP will tell you he bases his numbers on nothing more than his own imagination. I have always wondered why he wasn't selected to replace Wayne Brady as the host of Making Sh#$t Up.
MGH, you sound intelligent enough....go to law school. Become a prosecutor. Then do something to solve the problem, rather than rant on a website.....I would suggest becoming a cop, but they have a hiring freeze.
RealityKingpin wrote: “(3-28-11) RKP - 10,391 BGHS/John H, et al - 0.” Translation, State sanctioned murder by cop as compared to State sanctioned murders by citizens? But one must ask, over what period of time does RKP base these numbers on? Years, months, days or just hours? Curious minds would like to know.
MGH: Who is responsible for overseeing our overseers? The corruption will continue because they know a majority of the citizens are apathetic. Those who make waves, or expose the criminal class, will be viciously dealt with. In other words, the criminals are the guys sitting in officialdom.
In my next life, I want to be a prosecutor, a cop or a lawyer. I want to live in a fantasyland without consequences. I want to make mistakes, and never be held accountable for them. I want to stand tall for justice, and then do whatever I think is right. I want the right to demand that others be held accountable, without ever being accountable myself. There is no discount in the land of consequences for the inept. When the state fails to perform its duty, there are no consequences unless the defense can prove that the failure mattered, or, in legal speak, unless there is prejudice to the defendant. Just how do we square this nonsense with the presumption of innocence? I just don't get it. I really don't, and this is just one reason why I don't get it. In a civil case, a side that monkeys with evidence gets sanctioned, and a defendant in a criminal case gets charged with a crime for tampering with witnesses or destroying documents in anticipation of an investigation. But the state, that frosty legal fiction, routinely gets away with evidentiary murder. How is it, that the prosecution can stand there demanding that my client be held accountable for her failings, but that the state refuses any measure of accountability for its own failings? A client fails and the prison gates open; a prosecutor fails and we wink and pretend it is business as usual. Respect for the law is not promoted when the courts apply double standards in the criminal court. A civil litigant failing in such a manner suffers consequences; so do criminal defendants. Why do we go out of our way to cut the state so much slack? The answer is simple: we're not serious about the presumption of innocence. It really is that simple.