CCSD approves $1M settlement over Durango High incident
The Clark County School Board approved a settlement of $1 million to two families over a 2023 incident in which a school police officer pulled a student to the ground near Durango High School.
Video posted on social media, and later released as body camera footage, captured the February 2023 altercation near the Las Vegas high school in which Clark County School District Police Department Lt. Jason Elfberg grabbed a Black student, brought him to the ground next to a police vehicle and placed a knee on his back.
The incident sparked outrage from members of the community, including a protest outside the district’s administrative center.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada announced it would represent two students involved in the altercation. In April 2023, the organization filed a lawsuit against the school district seeking the release of body camera footage and other records related to the confrontation. District Judge Danielle Chio ordered the district to release body camera footage in December 2023.
Thursday’s unanimous vote to approve the settlement, the ACLU said, avoids an additional civil rights case being brought on behalf of the students.
“Two years and dozens of motions and hearings later, we’ve firmly established that CCSD’s original narrative in this matter was a bold-faced lie and that its attempt to hide records was done intentionally to hide the egregious misconduct of its own police department from the public,” ACLU of Nevada Executive Director Athar Haseebullah said in a statement after the vote.
CCSD police did not respond to a request for comment Thursday evening.
Videos spark outrage
Videos showed Elfberg detaining one student while another walked by recording on his phone. Elfberg grabbed that student, pulled him onto the ground and placed a knee on his back while yelling at nearby students to back up.
When Elfberg arrived at the scene, he said to a separate student walking across the street, “You wanted my attention, you got it.”
Just before grabbing the student and tackling him to the ground, Elfberg asked him: “You want next?”
At a January 2024 news conference, Haseebullah called the school district’s explanation that the incident stemmed from reports of a firearm in the area a “BS justification to stop and accost children.”
“As we’ve seen from the video, the basis for the stop was because one student looked at this officer — officer (Jason) Elfberg — in a manner that the officer did not like,” Haseebullah said.
In response to the confrontation, former Superintendent Jesus Jara and Police Chief Mike Blackeye testified before state legislators in March 2023 about the police department’s use-of-force policies.
Jara told the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s editorial board in June 2023 that an investigation into the confrontation was closed and the officer involved wasn’t fired.
The district also won’t change its use-of-force policy, he said.
“Hearing that CCSD has closed its investigation into its officer’s misconduct without requesting an interview with our clients raises serious questions about the district’s actual willingness to hold its officers accountable,” ACLU of Nevada Legal Director Chris Peterson said at the time.
On Thursday, Peterson said in a statement that he hoped the settlement would help the families heal.
“We’ve spent nearly two years seeking justice for our clients, their families, and the wider community, and we hope tonight’s settlement will help our clients and their families on their way to healing and peace,” Peterson said.
Other settlements approved
The School Board also approved two other lawsuits at Thursday’s meeting, totaling nearly $13 million. The school district last year blamed a potential budget deficit on spending $53 million on litigation and $15 million in cybersecurity costs.
The board approved a $9.6 million settlement to a family whose children suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a district bus driver.
The former driver, Michael Banco, was ordered to serve 35 years to life in prison in 2018 after prosecutors said he sexually assaulted “very small” children in the back of his bus. Having initially faced 41 charges, Banco pleaded guilty to one count each of sexual assault with a minor under 16 and lewdness with a child under 14.
Two other lawsuits filed by more of Banco’s victims ended up costing the district $18 million in recent years, with both lawsuits bringing in $9 million settlements.
Contact Katie Futterman at kfutterman@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ktfutts on X and @katiefutterman.bsky.social.