Where I Stand:

Lombardo: Policing in Las Vegas is at a crossroads

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Wade Vandervort

Sheriff Joe Lombardo watches footage of police interacting with protesters during a press conference at Metro Headquarters, Tuesday, June 16, 2020.

Mon, Aug 10, 2020 (2 a.m.)

Editor’s note: As he does every August, Brian Greenspun is turning over his Where I Stand column to others. Today’s guest columnist is Sheriff Joe Lombardo.

During the first days of the Black Lives Matter protests in Las Vegas, I decided to go downtown and see for myself what my police officers were dealing with.

I walked out on the scrimmage line that night to find that havoc, sparked by a police officer 1,600 miles away, had landed at the doorstep of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. The badge that had embodied hope in the face of despair during the Oct. 1 shooting now represented anger.

The stage for adversity had already been set by the pandemic that shut down our thriving city. The protests only piled on to an already difficult set of circumstances. It seems to be a repeat of 2012, when the effects from the economic downturn hit our agency while reform measures were underway. Once again, Metro has found itself at the crossroads of change. We are confronted with two equally and important imperatives: responding to our community’s call for change in law enforcement, and mitigating the damage from steep budget cuts caused by the coronavirus, which could hamper our ability to police.

After more than 160 protests, it is time to turn anger into actionable change. Efforts toward police reform began with the crack of the gavel at the start of the 32nd special session of the Legislature. It is an ambitious goal to create meaningful change in such a short period of time.

The special session’s early drafts for reform began as a condensed wish list from activists, well-meaning community members and legislators, and ended with the passage of Assembly Bill 3. The new laws mirror many elements that Metro has spearheaded. It requires officers to place an arrestee in the recovery position as soon as it is safe to do so. It mandates intervention when another officer is using force that’s unjustified. It adds a duty for an officer to report unwarranted force without negative consequences and prohibits the use of a chokehold and neck restraint.

Metro became the architect of reform measures nearly a decade ago. Key to that process was collaboration with the U.S. Department of Justice, which sent an independent team to conduct hundreds of interviews to gauge how people wanted to be policed. It took two years to fully research and implement reform measures. It took time to change our tactics and training — changes that resulted in reducing the number of officer-involved shootings by 27% last year. Those long-lasting reform measures that came out of that process created our community-based policing model that has been improved upon each year as we learn more.

Still, the special session was just a preview to the upcoming regular session in February. Metro is already anticipating discussions that address sources of funding for officers and a larger discussion about police reform.

Like most police departments across the country, Metro will likely find itself in the middle of a highly politicized debate about policing. Other cities are already dealing with radical ideas such as defunding police or even dismantling departments altogether. Reactionary measures historically have proven disastrous compared with finding solutions that come from more thoughtful engagement with people representing a diverse group of opinions. Metro has proven that it is on board with even more reform. We are willing to help guide decision-makers toward policies that are fair and inclusive across the board.

Akin to talks about police reform is the upcoming discussion about the budget as the state attempts to gauge the economic ripple effect that is coming. A third of Metro’s police workforce is funded by the More Cops tax and the Crime Prevention Act — both funds that are dependent on sales tax. The ability to support that number of positions is uncertain, leaving 1,100 positions in flux.

We’ve seen this movie before, after the economic recession 10 years ago. Spoiler alert: It ends with fewer cops on the streets and crime numbers dramatically up. When budget cuts happened last time, they created a cascading effect beginning with a hiring freeze, positions lost to retirement, and no way to fill them. Community policing programs were one of the areas hit. In some cases, officers were moved away from working with the community and redeployed to help patrol.

Metro Community Oriented Policing (COP) units are some of our most valuable assets in fighting crime. Their job is to deal with crime hotspots and bring resources to economically impacted areas, which largely affect minority communities. COP officers participate in more than 186 programs throughout our valley. In some of those communities, we have seen crime plummet by as much as 43% because of those involvements. It would be a disservice to those communities to reverse that progress.

In the search for social justice, it’s important that we don’t sacrifice the resources that lift up the very communities that are crying out for change. The fight for funding the police and the fight for social justice are related.

Lawmakers have an opportunity in February to build on what Metro has already created in this community. With any crossroads, change is inevitable. The only question is, can we all agree on which roadmap will move us toward the type of transformation in policing that the public demands, or will divisiveness sacrifice public safety?

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