Squatters, police vex rental owner

It took more than six weeks for Leon McKittrick to get six squatters out of a rental home he owns in Las Vegas.

McKittrick, 62, is a retired California attorney who moved to Las Vegas 11 years ago to buy low-income properties as rentals. He owns 20 four plexes on Cindysue Street south of Texas Station and six single-family homes, including one at 1713 Willowbrook Drive near Rancho and Vegas drives.

On Oct. 22 about 7 p.m., one of McKittrick’s employees called and said there were strangers living at the Willowbrook home. McKittrick called police and arrived at the home within 30 minutes.

“I informed the police officers I didn’t know these people, I’d never seen them and they were trespassers and I wanted them removed,” McKittrick said. “They claimed they had been living there six months. I asked for a receipt showing they’d paid rent, but there was no rental agreement and no utility bills.”

The person McKittrick had rented to had moved out shortly before, so he suspected the squatters hadn’t been there six months but more like a few days.

The police officers said there was nothing they could do because they believed the people did live there despite McKittrick’s protestations.

He asked the officers to call a supervisor, and soon Sgt. Leo Aguilar from the Bolden Area Command arrived. He agreed with the officers. The people were tenants, not squatters.

“By then all but two women had left. I asked them their names, but Leo Aguilar said they didn’t have to give me their names,” McKittrick said.

The police sergeant said McKittrick should go to the constable’s office and file a motion to evict the tenants.

McKittrick said because he didn’t know their names, how could he do that?

The next day, McKittrick went to the office of Las Vegas Constable John Bonaventura. “They indicated I should go back to Metro and file a police report,” McKittrick said.

First, he went to the main office on Martin Luther King Boulevard but was told to go to the Bolden Area Command. “When I gave them the Willowbrook address, they refused to take a police report. I’m getting run around in a circle,” he said.

He returned to the constable’s office and filed a three-day nuisance notice, which said the people at that address had until Oct. 31 to correct the nuisance by leaving.

The document clearly said the reason was “squatters” and had nothing to do with nonpayment of rent.

Returning on Halloween, McKittrick found the squatters still there.

Back to the constable’s office. They advised he file a five-day notice to quit the property. The squatters were served Nov. 1 and given until Nov. 9 to get out.

They didn’t leave.

This time, the constable’s office recommended McKittrick file a complaint for summary eviction with a justice of the peace, so he did. But he put in a code wrong. “I corrected the mistake and filed it the next day. Then I got it rejected because I didn’t have the people’s names.”

All along his paperwork had been filed with the constable’s office citing “Chris Doe and tenants” at the Willowbrook address.

Back at the Regional Justice Center, a “very nice” Justice Court clerk listened to his explanation why he had filed under only first name he had heard — Chris — and accepted his documents.

Justice of the Peace Janiece Marshall signed the eviction order Nov. 15.

On Nov. 20, he met a deputy constable, and the locks were changed and the squatters evicted — finally.

Except the next morning, he learned the three remaining squatters — a man, a woman and her adult daughter — had broken in and slept in the garage.

The mother asked if he would let them live in the garage for 10 days and promised they would clear out then. He did, and they finally left.

Meanwhile, he had filed a complaint with the Internal Affairs Bureau against Sgt. Aguilar and received a generic response saying, “The investigation failed to produce sufficient evidence to clearly prove or disprove the allegations, or it was determined the actions taken by (Aguilar) did not rise to the level of misconduct or was not a policy violation.”

Police spokesman Bill Cassell said the investigators told him there had been no policy violation in the Willowbrook investigation, and the police on the scene had done a great job. “The version you have been presented may be somewhat inaccurate, it may be somewhat incomplete.”

But from McKittrick’s perspective, he had wasted countless hours trying to get squatters out of his rental and the police had done nothing but hinder him.

If the squatters had been real renters, wouldn’t McKittrick have had their names and not been forced to go to court against “Chris Doe and occupants”? Wouldn’t they have had a rental agreement?

“The police knew these were squatters. They knew they were lying through their teeth,” the still-frustrated McKittrick said.

I don’t know what the police asked or didn’t ask before concluding these people were not squatters.The recording of what Aguilar and McKittrick said to each other is not public. Nor are the details of the internal police investigation, which police spokesman Cassell described as “an extraordinarily good job.”

But if McKittrick’s version is accurate and the police knowingly passed the buck to the constable’s office, they wasted McKittrick’s time and didn’t do their job.

The home on Willowbrook is now rented to a very nice couple.

Coming Monday: actions by government officials to reduce the squatter problem.

Jane Ann Morrison’s column appears on Monday, Thursday and Saturday. She can be reached at jmorrison@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0275.