Report: Las Vegas police misconduct complaints rarely lead to discipline
A new report shows that the Metropolitan Police Department’s internal affairs bureau received more than 4,500 misconduct complaints in 2018 and 2019.
Less than 10 percent of those allegations resulted in disciplinary action, according to the report, and 22 officers were allowed to resign or retire to avoid termination.
In a news release Wednesday, Metro touted the report as a win for transparency.
“This is the most detailed and comprehensive report of its kind that the LVMPD has ever released,” Metro said. “It is part of the department’s ongoing commitment to fostering transparency, accountability, and reform within all aspects of the agency, including alleged employee misconduct.”
The 36-page analysis was compiled from all external and internal misconduct complaints made in 2018 and 2019 — the most recent years for which complete misconduct data is available — against Metro’s rank-and-file officers and civilian employees.
Metro is Nevada’s largest police agency with about 3,300 police officers and around 930 corrections officers.
The report’s release came six weeks after the Las Vegas Review-Journal published “Flawed Discipline,” an accountability investigation that centered on Henderson police. The analysis of internal affairs data showed Henderson officers with years of sustained citizen complaints, allegations of sexual misconduct or criminal arrests were still working, and some had been promoted.
While Metro’s report provides a better look at accountability within the department, in the past Metro has protected the identity of officers under investigation for misconduct and has withheld internal affairs histories for officers.
Last summer, when police accountability came under intense public scrutiny following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, Metro was one of two police agencies in Clark County that declined to release any detailed misconduct reports or identifying information in response to a Review-Journal records request.
State law does not exempt internal affairs files from disclosure under public records laws, but to withhold disciplinary records, police departments often cite court rulings balancing the public’s right to know with employee privacy.
“With all due respect to Metro, if you put out a report and keep the underlying documents secret, that’s not transparency. It’s PR,” Richard Karpel, executive director of the Nevada Press Association, said Wednesday after reviewing the statistical report.
In 2018, according to the report, 1,043 employees were formally investigated for misconduct by Metro’s internal affairs bureau or the employee’s supervising bureau. That figure decreased the following year to 1,010.
In those two years, 39 employees were arrested in connection with 53 total “criminal offenses,” and more than half of those employees had been on the force for five years or fewer at the time of arrest, according to the report. The top offense both years was DUI.
During that same period, Metro’s Citizen Review Board conducted 33 investigations — 23 in 2018 and 10 in 2019. The board is independent of the Police Department and was created to hold accountable Metro’s internal affairs bureau.
Because the names of officers under investigation are kept secret, it’s unclear how many of the Citizen Review Board’s cases, if any, overlap with Metro’s internal investigations.
Meanwhile, in 66 percent of Metro’s internal investigations in 2019, the probe was closed after a “no policy violation” finding, the report shows.
But when an allegation is found to be substantiated, discipline can include a written reprimand, transfer, suspension, demotion or termination. In some cases, officers also are allowed to resign or retire in lieu of termination.
A written reprimand — the lowest level of discipline — was the most common form of discipline in 2018 and 2019, followed by suspensions. According to the report, a suspension can range from eight to 40 work hours, during which the employee will be prohibited from working and will not be paid.
Data on 2020 misconduct allegations will be available at a later date, according to Metro, because as of last month, 114 cases remained open. In the coming years, the report will grow into a three-year statistical analysis.
Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter.
