More Cops tax comes just in time

The Clark County Commission's decision earlier this month to approve a tax increase to fund additional police officers couldn't have come at a better time.

From the look of things on the street, Metro can certainly use the backup.

The More Cops sales tax increase, a 0.05 percentage point increase, takes effect in January and is anticipated to collect approximately $19.4 million per year over the next decade with most of that funding going to employ at least 130 officers. From a fiscal policy standpoint, there was a good argument to make that any increase in the sales tax would have an unfair impact on residents of lower economic status.

But winning with that argument was impossible during a September that's seen multiple shootings of local officers.

An armed assailant approached two patrol officers Sunday afternoon while they were stopped in their black-and-white and fired three shots at them from close range. One officer was hit in the right hand.

The suspect dropped the pistol, fled on foot a short distance, and was quickly apprehended. It was to the officers' great credit that they maintained their cool. Others might not have been as professional.

Early Friday morning, officer Jeremy Robertson was shot in the upper right leg while answering a prowler call. He was hospitalized and is expected to recover.

Every time an officer is shot, I can't help pausing to remember the awful 2014 ambush assassinations of veteran officers Alyn Beck and Igor Soldo at a local pizza parlor. That's the nightmarish barometer by which all violence against police will be measured for a long time.

Officers shot, cops murdered. Bullets flying almost every day. The local tally of casualties grows and doesn't include the August shooting death of Carson City Sheriff's Deputy Carl Howell while answering a domestic dispute call.

It only begs the obvious that the shootings are a reminder police have a difficult and dangerous job, one which largely goes unnoticed until something goes wrong. But it's also an undeniable truth.

Sheriff Joe Lombardo tries to keep the incidents in perspective. He says violent crime is up, and assaults with weapons have risen dramatically. But he adds, "As a society, we're not unique in what we're experiencing here in Las Vegas in terms of an increase in violent crime. ... We're looking at a similar type of increase in crime across the nation."

Maybe we will look back in a few months and note that the recent violence was a statistical anomaly and not a trend, not a "war on police" as some conservative media have called it. It would be nice to think so, but I doubt this is a passing shadow.

It's not necessarily a war on the cops, either. But it's certainly a sign of the times in a society awash in firearms. We like to look down our noses at those war-torn nations piled high with AK-47s, but we're only a shade better.

It's a shame that criminals and the mentally still have such easy access to guns. But the fact is plenty of taxpaying citizens are also pulling triggers and ending lives. Domestic violence homicides rank near the top of the American carnage chart year after year. Cops know they're some of the most dangerous calls to answer.

Of course, every call is a life-or-death predicament for a police officer in a country with so many budding Billy the Kids and short pants Al Capones. The officers know this, too.

It's unfair to expect officers to protect and serve in a shooting gallery of our own making, but that's exactly what we're doing. And they still show up for work every day.

In a few months, there will be more cops on the street.

Training and sending additional officers into the increasingly mean streets of Las Vegas isn't an answer to the violence, but it's a sign we're paying attention to the sound of gunfire so close to home.

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. He can be reached at 702-383-0295 or jsmith@reviewjournal.com. On Twitter: @jlnevadasmith.