Sheriff McMahill spotlights Metro advances, roadway carnage in re-election bid
Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill touted falling crime statistics and technological advances at the Metropolitan Police Department and addressed traffic-related deaths on Las Vegas Valley roadways during a re-election campaign launch on Monday night.
A couple hundred supporters showed up to the in-person in person event at Worre Studios in the southwest valley, including lawmakers like Gov. Joe Lombardo and Las Vegas Mayor Shelley Berkley.
Dozens more tuned in virtually. They were displayed on a large, wraparound screen in the 25,000 square-foot facility.
“I have this great, great honor to lead the finest police department in this planet,” he said in his remarks, which ran about 30 minutes.
Priorities
McMahill said when he campaigned three years ago, he promised to crack down on crime, “take care of our cops and become the most technologically advanced police department in this country.”
He added: “We’ve done all of those things.”
McMahill, a 35-year Metro veteran, is running for a second term after his 2022 election. A challenger hasn’t emerged, at least publicly, but filing doesn’t take place until March.
Metro is in the midst of a “double-digit” crime reduction rate, including a 35 percent reduction in homicides year-to-date and what he described as a 95 percent solve rate for the killings, McMahill said.
Investigators have also solved 98 percent of non-fatal shootings since January, said the sheriff, who credited a centralized effort that brings in multiple units in to probe the incidents.
He acknowledged that crime is also trending downward at other major cities.
Addressing Metro’s efforts to offer mental health treatment for its 6,300 employees, including about 4,000 officers, McMahill touched on what they experience every day.
Roadway carnage
The sheriff brought up a scooter crash that killed a child and injured another Thursday in northwest Las Vegas.
“But that’s just one event in one day, what these men and women go out and get exposed to regularly, every single day,” said McMahill who helped spearhead the department’s Wellness Bureau.
Experts at the center see about 450 visitors each month, he said.
The idea for the facility was born out of what he and his wife — retired Metro Deputy Chief Kelly McMahill — experienced after they responded to the Oct. 1, 2017, mass shooting on the Strip, he said.
The sheriff lobbied in favor of red light and speed cameras to the Nevada Legislature session earlier this year. The bill to legalize them did not reach the governor’s desk.
McMahill said he was “literally laughed out of the building” when he testified in favor of the legislation.
He said an audience at a recent sheriffs’ convention in Colorado gasped audibly when McMahill spoke about the carnage on Las Vegas Valley roads.
McMahill said he would continue advocating for roadway technology at future sessions.
“I don’t think we’re talking about a partisan effort here,” he said. “This is about human beings, and making sure that if you take the life of another human being, that you’re held accountable.”
He added: “Safer roads is a big, big part of what I’m going to do over the course of the next couple of years.”
McMahill touted a fleet of outfitted police-outfitted Tesla Cybertrucks the department planned to unveil Tuesday.
“They’re tactically more safe for our cops,” he said. “They’re going to be loaded with all of this special equipment… They’re going to be out there for these cops to take what I think is probably the coolest police car on the planet.”
The sheriff encouraged supporters to help him campaign, which he described as a secondary priority.
“The truth is, running the police department and running a campaign is hard,” McMahill said. “I have to run this department. That matters the most to me.”
Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com.
