District attorney’s office doesn’t treat police shootings like other Las Vegas homicides

Prosecutors in many American cities step in as the public's watchdog in the aftermath of a police shooting, but the Clark County district attorney's office is content to sit on the sidelines. It doesn't treat shootings by police like other homicides and it won't even review an officer's use of deadly force unless the sheriff or a chief of police requests it.

And when it comes to presenting the facts of a fatality at a coroner's inquest, prosecutors switch hats and instead become the police officer's defense.

In the fourth in a five-part special series, the Review-Journal found that the much-maligned inquest system is a red herring, designed to divert attention from a system that protects errant officers from the minute they shoot until the coroner's jury rules their actions justified.