Officers in two separate citizen deaths won’t be charged

County prosecutors won't be charging officers involved in two separate citizen deaths in 2010, District Attorney Steve Wolfson announced in statements released to the public on Thursday.

The decision letters - a first for the county over police-involved deaths - absolve from criminal prosecution the Nevada Highway Patrol troopers who used a Taser on a person up to 19 times in August 2010 and the Las Vegas police officer who shot a man who was wielding a walking stick three months later.

But while the reports offer far more information than police have released, important details were left out, and some questions remain unanswered, according to Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I guess I am surprised when you read things coming from the DA's office which sound like their tone is less than objective," he said.

In one instance, the district attorney's report fails to mention that troopers used a Taser on Eduardo Lopez-Hernandez multiple times after he was handcuffed, as trooper Heather Neely told investigators, according to a transcript of her statement obtained by the Review-Journal.

Instead, the decision letter by Chief Deputy District Attorney Alexandra Chrysanthis said that troopers used the Taser, and after Lopez-Hernandez was handcuffed, troopers noticed he stopped breathing and began performing CPR.

Wolfson approved the letter. Efforts Thursday to reach Wolfson and the authors of the letters were unsuccessful.

The decision letters are an attempt to provide public disclosure into 18 months of police-involved deaths, after the coroner's inquest process stalled and a Review-Journal investigation last year revealed that prosecutors hadn't investigated or received reports into more than a dozen fatal police shootings.

The letters include a "factual summary" of the incident, including statements by officers, witnesses and medical examiners, and are followed by a legal analysis ending with the prosecutor's decision about whether the officers' actions were legal.

Prosecutors are releasing the letters on the Clark County district attorney's website and will release their decisions on 16 more fatal police actions - including December's fatal shooting of unarmed, disabled veteran Stanley Gibson - over the next weeks and months.

Lichtenstein said he was not calling for prosecuting the officers, but instead took issue with the decision letters.

"Whether that rises to criminal behavior or not, that's one question," he said. "But the idea of suggesting this is proper police practice is what we've seen for the last 30 years. It's just put in writing now."

MAN ARMED WITH STICK

Anthony James Brenes, 32, was killed in November 2010 by a single shot fired by Las Vegas police officer Sean Miller.

According to the decision letter by Chief Deputy District Attorney Christopher Laurent, Brenes was walking with his wife to the Mohave Mental Health Clinic early in the morning.

The wife knew they were walking in the wrong direction, but she didn't correct her husband because she was afraid of him and afraid he would hit her with a "stick."

A witness in a car then saw Brenes pick up a large rock and throw it. Believing he was witnessing a domestic dispute, the witness flagged down Miller, who was talking to a homeless man nearby.

Miller met Brenes outside a Speedee Mart and tried to get the man to drop what apparently was a walking stick. The report doesn't clarify what Brenes was holding in his hand. One witness described it as a "large club." Miller called it a "stick." Others thought it was a "cane," a "pipe" or a "crowbar."

Miller and two other officers repeatedly told him to drop the stick. They used a Taser on Brenes twice and fired rounds from a less-lethal beanbag shotgun. Officers and witnesses said he was waving the stick and yelling, "Shoot me."

He advanced on the officers, who retreated several times. Miller shot him once as Brenes "closed in on" the officer, according to the letter.

But there is no indication in the letter how close Brenes was to the officer. And it's not clear what Brenes' wife witnessed or whether she gave a statement to police.

TASER DEATH

The coroner's inquest process is set to resume under a revised format next month with the case of Lopez-Hernandez, 21.

Lopez-Hernandez was with his brother at a soccer practice when he began acting strangely and saying, "It's not me."

When the coach asked whether he was all right, the young man tried to start a fight, according to the letter.

Lopez-Hernandez drove away with the brother and crashed into stopped traffic on U.S. Highway 95. He climbed out of his car, and several motorists confronted him. He fought and tried biting some people, witnesses said.

Some people tried to help him until troopers arrived. Lopez-Hernandez was combative with troopers who were trying to restrain him, biting at them and struggling on the ground.

Troopers tried to handcuff him but failed. Troopers Neely and Scott Simon each used a Taser on him during the struggle - records showed the device had been fired 19 times - and Lopez-Hernandez had at least 10 contact marks from the back of his neck to his ankle, according to the report.

The medical examiner ruled he died of "cardiopulmonary arrest during varied restraining procedures." But the prosecutors' letter includes a statement by a "Dr. Vilke," who rebuts the examiner's finding, saying Lopez-Hernandez died of "excited delirium," a disputed syndrome often associated with drug use and not police actions.

Lopez-Hernandez had amounts of THC - from marijuana use - in his system, but not cocaine or other drugs associated with "excited delirium," according to the decision letter.

The report doesn't explain who "Dr. Vilke" is or why prosecutors reached out to him for an opinion. He is likely Dr. Gary Vilke, a Southern California physician who has researched excited delirium.

Contact reporter Lawrence Mower at lmower@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0440.