Lawsuit: Metro officers fired pepper balls at protester who criticized police

Las Vegas police officers fired pepper balls at a protester after she criticized them, a lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges.

An officer then falsified an arrest report, changing the time and location of her arrest, in order to “manufacture probable cause,” the complaint claims.

“The conduct of Defendant Officers was a direct consequence of (the Metropolitan Police Department’s) failure to train and supervise its officers, as well as de facto policies and practices implemented, condoned, fostered and tacitly sanctioned by Defendants which reflect a willful indifference to Plaintiff’s constitutional rights,” the filing said.

Attorneys Jared Richards and Stephen Stubbs filed the lawsuit on behalf of Kathleen Cavalaro in Clark County District Court.

The suit names Metro, the city of Las Vegas and officer J. Tomlinson as defendants. It claims excessive force, wrongful arrest and violations of Cavalaro’s First Amendment rights.

Tomlinson’s first name does not appear in the complaint, but state records show a Joel Tomlinson has had a category one peace officer license since 2016, according to the Nevada Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training.

Officer Robert Wicks, a Metro spokesperson, confirmed the officer’s first name and said Tomlinson and the department would have no comment.

A Las Vegas spokesperson said the city is aware of the suit but has not been served with it.

Cavalaro was one of thousands who gathered in downtown Las Vegas this June to oppose a crackdown on illegal immigration by President Donald Trump’s administration. Over 100 protesters were arrested, but the city attorney’s office decided not to prosecute 90 of the protesters. Cavalaro’s case was among those dropped.

“Cases are currently under review by the City Attorney’s Office and in others charges have been filed,” said city spokesperson Jace Radke in an email. “As was previously stated, the statute of limitations for all cases is one year, and if new evidence emerges, individuals involved could still face additional legal action.”

Cavalaro left work around 9:30 p.m. on June 11 and arrived at the protest at about 10 p.m., the complaint said. She videotaped police and, when they told her to move, said, “This is public property. You guys are a disgrace,” according to the suit.

At Carson and Fourth streets, she found about 50 Metro officers in riot gear and tried to pass them, but police told her to go the other way. An officer also raised and pointed a rifle at Cavalaro, the suit alleged.

It was a pepper ball rifle, but Cavalaro didn’t know that at the time, Stubbs said in a phone interview.

But she turned around and started to walk away, as police had directed, according to the filing.

Then, the suit alleged, an officer shot Cavalaro in the back with a pepper ball. She tried to use her protest sign for protection and two officers approached her, “shooting a barrage of pepper balls, all while she was walking backwards and attempting to comply with the officer’s order,” according to the complaint.

Although Metro policy forbade using pepper balls against people complying, retreating and not posing a threat, Metro “provided training to its officers that indicated otherwise,” the suit said attorneys believe. Tomlinson was a field training officer, the complaint said.

“Upon information and belief, Officer Tomlinson was acting as a field training officer on June 11, 2025, actively engaged in training other LVMPD officers in crowd control tactics during the protest,” attorneys said.

The ACLU of Nevada previously released a letter from the department disclosing that officers deployed 750 PepperBall rounds in the June protests, as well as dozens of other munitions.

Tomlinson’s arrest report said Cavalaro was arrested for failure to disperse and provoking a breach of peace, according to the filing.

The report misstated the time and location of her arrest, putting it at 9:30 p.m. at 501 S. Las Vegas Boulevard when it was really after 10 p.m. and at Fourth and Carson, the suit said.

The complaint said Cavalaro was not present for dispersal orders.

“Upon information and belief, Officer Tomlinson deliberately falsified the time and location of Ms. Cavalaro’s arrest in his Declaration of Arrest to falsely place Ms. Cavalaro within the dispersal zone at approximately the time dispersal orders were given, thereby manufacturing probable cause for the charge of Failure to Disperse,” her attorneys wrote.

Although a court order required Cavalaro’s release in the morning, the city held her for nine more hours and “a jail officer delivered a religious sermon rebuking her activism in the name of Jesus, threatening ‘life in prison’ if she protested again,” according to the filing.

Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BrighamNoble on X.