Civil rights inquiry of police shootings on hold

Federal authorities will wait and see how the Metropolitan Police Department responds to a review of its officer-involved shootings before deciding whether to open a civil rights investigation into the agency, two civil rights groups were told Tuesday.

The letter from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division was a disappointment to the two groups, which requested the investigation after a Review-Journal series about police shootings and after the police shooting death of an unarmed, disabled war veteran late last year.

"That’s not the response we were expecting," said Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada. "We were expecting them to take our request seriously."

A formal decision about whether to investigate could be months away and could hinge on the findings of a separate, voluntary federal review of Las Vegas police shootings, policies and procedures, according to the letter by the chief of the Civil Rights Division’s Special Litigation Section.

A Las Vegas police spokesman said the department looked forward to working with the officials conducting the review, but he would not comment further.

The decision is likely a relief for department officials. A civil rights investigation into systemic civil rights abuses is far different from the voluntary review announced last week by Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie.

The Civil Rights Division can mandate reforms, sometimes through a consent decree. The team doing the review, a separate Justice Department arm called the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), can’t.

Lichtenstein called the letter "totally inadequate."

"They did not talk to us. They did not consult with us," he said, adding, "I would have expected something that sounded less like a press release."

Although the COPS review could be worthwhile, he said it was not the sort of independent investigation requested by his organization or by the Las Vegas chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

"It doesn’t strike me as the type of thing that is really designed to give the public confidence that real change is going to be made," Lichtenstein said.

Both groups plan to hold a news conference about the subject today. .

The COPS review, which is expected to take at least six months, came about in November, on the second day of a five-part Review-Journal series highlighting how Las Vegas police shot at people more often than other departments did and how police were reluctant to learn from their shootings and hold officers accountable for mistakes.

The head of the COPS office called Gillespie and suggested his team come out and review Las Vegas police policies and procedures. The COPS office had never done such a thorough review of a department and was looking to start somewhere, the COPS director said last week.

At the end of the review, the COPS office will issue a public report that could include recommendations and areas for improvement. The study also might be used as a clearinghouse of "best practices" that other departments can use.

But the review will be contingent upon what kind of access the COPS researchers can get from the Metropolitan Police Department — and what the department wants them to study. COPS Director Bernard Melekian said last week that had not been decided.

Other groups, such as the Police Executive Research Forum, have done large-scale studies of police use of deadly force. Sometimes the studies require access to sensitive information, such as officer discipline files, that only the department can provide.

In the letter, the Civil Rights Division said it will "monitor" the Metropolitan Police Department’s participation in the program. It also is still reviewing the request by the ACLU of Nevada and the Las Vegas NAACP.

Contact Lawrence Mower at lmower@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0440.