Lawsuit: Officers in ‘rival’ police union face intimidation tactics

A lawsuit claims that the Metropolitan Police Department and its union have “maliciously conspired” to intimidate rank-and-file officers who join a “rival” police union.

The 13-page lawsuit was filed Monday in Clark County District Court against Metro and the Las Vegas Police Protective Association on behalf of the Nevada Association of Public Safety Officers, a union consisting of about 1,500 members across the state, including Henderson police officers, Nevada Highway Patrol troopers and nearly 200 Metro officers.

In a statement to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nicholas Wieczorek, attorney for the statewide police union, said, “The lawsuit was filed in response to multiple examples of Metro and its union trying to prevent peace officers from exercising their right to representation at administrative investigations and interviews.”

Wieczorek added that the state’s officer Bill of Rights, also known as NRS 289, “is clear that peace officers are allowed representational choice, especially where the representative is a private attorney retained to represent the officer at the officer’s request.”

According to the lawsuit, the intimidation tactics occurred on at least five occasions, between June and November, during internal affairs interviews with corrections officers.

The lawsuit claims that in each instance, a Las Vegas police union representative sat in on the interviews, “seeking to intimidate and distress” the officers as they were being questioned, in addition to creating “a chilling effect upon other LVMPD officers who would seek to become members of NAPSO.”

In November, two corrections officers who are members of the Nevada Association of Public Safety Officers were summoned for an interview with Metro’s internal affairs unit regarding “allegations raised by another officer.” Both were instructed by the Police Department that their legal representation “cannot be an agent or employee of a rival employee organization,” according to the lawsuit.

“PPA’s conduct of insisting in ‘sitting in’ during official investigative proceedings, and LVMPD’s acceptance of such conduct, where no representative of PPA has been invited to nor requested to represent the impacted officer, further results in damage to the contractual relationship between NAPSO and its members, as well as engaging in conduct designed to coerce, interfere, intimidate and harass NAPSO’s members,” the lawsuit states.

Metro declined to comment Tuesday, citing pending litigation, while Steve Grammas, president of the Police Department’s union, said Tuesday morning that he was unaware of the complaint.

The lawsuit is seeking attorney fees and a court injunction that would prevent future efforts by Metro and its union to interfere with investigatory proceedings involving officers with outside legal representation.

Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter.