Former lieutenant governor candidate sues Clark County

A former candidate for Nevada lieutenant governor who was forcefully removed from a Clark County Commission meeting in 2021 has sued the governmental body and its security officers.

In the lawsuit filed Thursday in District Court, Mack Miller alleges assault, excessive force and negligence, among other claims for relief.

The county and an attorney representing Miller did not respond Friday to messages seeking comment.

The lawsuit stems from a contentious Sept. 21, 2021, meeting in which commissioners ultimately declared COVID-19 misinformation a public health crisis. The ordinance had no enforcement capabilities.

When commissioners ordered the government chambers be cleared because of disruptions from the public, county-hired security officers physically removed Miller.

Video that emerged online showed officers pushing him through a metal detector, nearly knocking it over.

Miller, who claimed he hit his forehead with the machine, lay on the ground before he crawled toward the exit.

“There’s no way you’re going to stop me from protecting these people’s (expletive) rights!” Miller yelled as he was forcefully removed.

“What they did was wrong,” Miller told the Review-Journal later that week. “How they responded to it was wrong.”

The lawsuit notes that Miller was holding a phone, which he was using to record live on Facebook, in one hand, and a notepad in the other.

According to the lawsuit, Miller had confronted the security officers because they had shoved a woman, and he asked for their names and badge numbers.

“Eventually, Mr. Miller was physically lifted up by Defendants And had his back” shoved through double doors and then through the metal detector outside the chambers, the lawsuit alleges, noting that Miller lost consciousness.

“At no time did Mr. Miller swing or punch anyone, nor did he make any aggressive movement,” the lawsuit said.

The following month, county spokesman Erik Pappa said, a “verbal debriefing” took place, involving multiple people about the incident, “but there was no written report or finding of any kind.”

Miller, who lost his bid for lieutenant governor to Las Vegas Councilman Stavros Anthony in the June Republican primary, has previously made unsuccessful bids for Las Vegas mayor and the Nevada Assembly.

In 2018, the Review-Journal reported that Miller had been sentenced to 18 months confinement for deserting fellow Army soldiers on the frontline of the Iraq War.

Miller has said he was court-martialed because he refused to resign. Twice, he unsuccessfully appealed the military court’s ruling.

The lawsuit, which also lists unnamed officers from a county-employed firm, seeks damages in excess of $15,000 for medical expenses, attorney fees and emotional distress.

Court records show that the county hadn’t been served with the lawsuit as of Friday afternoon.

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @rickytwrites.