Sheriff on shifting detectives to streets: ‘It would be a disservice for me not to’

Sheriff Joe Lombardo addressed concerns Friday surrounding the Metropolitan Police Department’s plan to shift plain-clothed officers and detectives to temporary two-week patrol rotations, a move local police unions called a “knee-jerk reaction” to a 25-percent spike in violent crime amid a valley cop shortage.

“It would be a disservice to the community for me not to react to this increase in violent crime,” Lombardo said. “That’s what I was elected to do.”

The move, dubbed the “violent crime initiative,” asks detectives to work at least one two-week patrol shift through August, when Metro expects some replenishment with about 150 new officers ready for field training and 40 new officers who will be done with field training and ready to work solo.

Until then, Lombardo said, “I have a finite number of resources.”

“A detective is considered an advancement in the rank structure,” Lombardo said. “They receive additional pay in the advancement, and subsequently we are asking them to return to the streets to do basic police work.”

Lt. John Faulis, chairman of the Las Vegas Police Managers and Supervisors Association, understood the department was facing a cop shortage. But he said detectives are drowning in casework, too, and pulling them away from their desks for two weeks at a time — three weeks if you include required time off between shifts, he said — defeats the purpose of them working patrols.

“You put all these guys out on the street; they’re arguably and hopefully going to make arrests,” Faulis said. “And the detectives who are going to be following up on those? The detectives aren’t at their desks.”

The current initiative, announced last week, places 48 plain-clothed officers and detectives in the field each day — 16 per shift, Lombardo said. When asked whether the move would affect the quality and quantity of cases Metro handles in the meantime, Lombardo said it was a “minor issue.”

“It’s no different than a police officer taking a vacation,” he said. “Another police officer will supplement them and follow up with their cases.”

Faulis rebutted: “Now you have 16 detectives taking a vacation.”

Since Jan. 1, when the More Cops sales tax increase was approved so Metro could start hiring, violent crime in the valley has increased in all categories: homicides, sexual assaults, robberies and assault and batteries with a deadly weapon.

Lombardo said the detectives who will be working as additional patrol officers will be deployed “in areas with significant increases in crime.”

Those areas include the southwest valley, the south-central valley and the northeast valley, especially.

“Omnipresence makes a difference,” Lombardo said. “An officer behind a desk doesn’t have the omnipresence that we need to address violent crime.”

Mark Chaparian, executive director of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, said increasing police presence alone isn’t a solution.

“That makes people feel good, but that doesn’t work,” Chaparian said. “It disperses bad guys. You’re scaring them, so they’re going to go hide around the corner, but you’re not fixing anything.”

Bill Sousa, the director for UNLV’s center for crime and justice policy, said Chaparian’s concerns had some validity, but the issue was complicated.

“Simply adding officers to an area will not decrease crime,” he said. But if the officers you add face crime proactively — identifying specific problems, identifying specific offenders and talking to people, not just driving through the area in a patrol car — “that can be effective.”

Sousa said asking detectives to work patrols isn’t common, “but some agencies have gone in that direction, and it can be beneficial.”

“Detective work almost by definition is reactive; you’re investigating something that already happened,” he said. “What we know about crime is that to prevent it, you have to be proactive.”

Lombardo said Metro has been reactive for the last three years with a dwindling of the police force and a climb in population. Metro’s officer-to-resident ratio is well below the national average, he said: Nationwide, it’s 2.2 officers per every 1,000 residents; in the valley, it’s 1.8, not including the Strip’s more than 40 million annual visitors.

“It’s hard to be proactive when the numbers will not enable you to be,” he said, adding the initiative is a short-term solution.

“There is light at the end of the tunnel; we’re hiring,” the sheriff said. “The long-term solution is to get those detectives back to address cases.”

Contact Rachel Crosby at rcrosby@reviewjournal.com at 702-387-5290. Find her on Twitter: @rachelacrosby