Metro settles
Las Vegas police report they’re set to pay out $1.7 million in taxpayer money to the family of Trevon Cole. Pending approval today by the department’s Fiscal Affairs Committee, that would be the largest single settlement in the history of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
The figure is a stark indication of just how bad a raid on the small-time drug dealer’s apartment went two years ago.
In the spring of 2010, in four sidewalk drug deals, undercover officers bought a total of 1.8 ounces of marijuana from Cole, 21, who lived in an apartment near Bonanza Road and Eastern Avenue. A judge later approved a search warrant for Cole’s place based on sworn information provided by Detective Bryan Yant that later proved to be wrong.
On June 11, 2010, officers wearing full combat gear broke into Cole’s darkened apartment. Yant participated and was armed with an AR-15 rifle. He proceeded even though his attached flashlight wasn’t working.
In the seconds that followed, Yant shot and killed Cole while the man was kneeling on his bathroom floor, flushing marijuana down his toilet. Yant said Cole, who was unarmed, rose and lunged at the officer, but physical evidence contradicted his story. Former Clark County District Attorney David Roger told the Review-Journal he and other prosecutors didn’t believe Yant’s version of events.
When testifying at coroner’s inquests, officers are usually reluctant to contradict one of their brethren. But the testimony of the other officers at the scene did not match Yant’s. They testified there was no pause between the sound of Yant kicking open the bathroom door and the sound of his rifle discharging. Because the inquest process so favored police interests at the time, the jury found the shooting justified.
The incident, one of two controversial shootings in 2010, prompted Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie to restrict which officers are allowed to serve search warrants and led to reforms of the coroner’s inquest system.
Yant received a 40-hour suspension. The proposed settlement would be the third million-dollar payout for the self-insured department in the past 10 months, with several other high-profile cases pending.
Yant’s many mistakes probably contributed to the high settlement amount. Furthermore, restricting such officers to desk work doesn’t mean they won’t ever be in a position to cost Las Vegans money, embarrassment, and even human lives, again.
No one has a right to permanent employment on a police force. Bryan Yant’s badge, uniform and bad judgment have cost lives and hundreds of thousands of dollars. At the very least, Sheriff Gillespie should fire him.
