Las Vegas police on Monday evening escort thousands of immigration overhaul protesters southbound along Las Vegas Boulevard near Flamingo Road. Photo by Jeff Scheid. "If we had tried to stop (the marchers), it would have led to fights, arrests. "Attempting to stop it would have been like spitting into the wind." SHERIFF BILL YOUNG

Las Vegas police still were calculating the cost of staffing Monday's immigration overhaul marches, but the toll of nine recent demonstrations on the department's crime-fighting ability was apparent, Sheriff Bill Young said Wednesday.

"We don't need any more marches," Young said, saying that they are a distraction from the Metropolitan Police Department's normal duties.

Both of Monday's marches -- in which thousands of protesters took to city streets, tying up traffic and about 220 police officers for hours -- went forward without the required city and county permits, officials said Wednesday.

But Young said police have no intention of citing anyone for the largest march, which shut down a five-mile section of the Strip.

"Who would you have us cite?" Young asked. "There were 100 or so officers out there and 6,000 to 8,000 marchers.

"If we had tried to stop (the marchers), it would have led to fights, arrests," he said. "Attempting to stop it would have been like spitting into the wind."

Nor did it appear that authorities would cite organizers of the smaller Monday morning rally and march for failing to obtain permits.

If an event will block a roadway, organizers must obtain a free permit, hire workers to barricade streets and pay police officers to route traffic, officials said. Police also must sign off on the permits, so they know what streets will be affected and what level of security is needed.

For an event like Monday morning's rally in a city park, organizers must get a park-usage permit and buy an insurance policy for park damage, Las Vegas city spokesman David Riggleman said. The cost for a park-usage permit varies depending on the size and type of the event, but starts at $75.

Carlos Mejia, one of the organizers of the morning rally and march, said there was a "mix-up" in getting permits. Organizers thought they had "verbal" permission for the march, he said.

At the preceding rally, police told organizers they should have a permit but could march anyway, he said. "We would not have marched if we didn't have permission," he said.

Eva Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the United Coalition for Immigrant Rights, said organizers did not get a permit for the evening march down the Strip because they did not have enough time. She said organizers did buy insurance for the march.

The turnout "was unexpected, and we did the best we could," she said.

Police had not added up the cost of the extra manpower needed during Monday's two demonstrations.

An official tally of the number of people who participated was hard to come by because police and organizers differed widely in their estimates.

Most agreed that about 3,000 people participated in the first march, which began about 8 a.m. at Jaycee Park. Protesters then headed to the Lloyd George U.S. Courthouse downtown.

Police estimated that about 8,000 people attended the later demonstration, which began at 6 p.m. at the Fremont Street Experience, but organizers said the number might have been 10 times that.

The United Coalition for Immigrant Rights, a coalition of student, religious and business groups, arrived at its estimate of between 80,000 and 100,000 people by comparing video from the Monday evening march with footage of New Year's Eve revelers on the Strip, Rodriguez said.

The group increased its previous estimates to account for people who might not have walked to the march's conclusion at New York-New York.

Sgt. Chris Jones said the police department's estimate was not calculated using a specific method but was arrived at through reports from officers in the field.

"We estimate 8,000 at the high end," he said.

A police aircraft monitored the march. But the camera on the aircraft was not working, limiting officers' view of the crowd, Jones said.

Evelyn Flores, a UNLV student and member of Students Stand Up, part of the activist coalition, said she did not think police intentionally gave a low estimate for Monday's demonstration.

"The police probably haven't seen anything like that before," she said. "Maybe there's no relative comparison."

Free-speech activists commended police for allowing the marches to go on and maintaining the safety of the marchers and the public.

"It is the job of the police to ensure that the rights of the protesters are protected and that there be safety and order when there are political protests," said Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel of the ACLU of Nevada. "It doesn't matter why people are protesting. ... The streets and sidewalks, even those along Las Vegas Boulevard, are a public forum."

The group's executive director, Gary Peck, added: "Nobody ever said democracy was the most efficient and least costly system. It's just the best system. The demonstrations should be a source of great pride, even for those who were against the message."

But Chris Christoff, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, was angry that protesters were allowed to march along the Strip without a permit. A few years ago, Christoff tried to organize a Strip parade to honor veterans. He said he applied for a permit but was turned down.

"The reason they (the county) gave was that they couldn't close the streets off because it was a safety hazard," he said.

Christoff also said he was told he would have to come up with $25,000 for an insurance policy, pay overtime for police officers to monitor the event, and pay workers to put up barricades.

County Senior Engineering Technician Ray Martin said that permits are handled on a case-by-case basis, and permits for marches on the Strip are "different because of the volume of traffic involved."

"It depends on the circumstances, really," Martin said.

He said he was not involved in denying Christoff's request for a permit and could not comment on it.

Review-Journal staff writers David Kihara, Francis McCabe, Lawrence Mower and Antonio Planas contributed to this report.