Sheriff says department can’t ‘circle the wagons’

Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie will be reviewing how the Metropolitan Police Department serves and executes search warrants for narcotics, he said in a wide-ranging interview with the Review-Journal's editorial board on Tuesday.

The review comes after the death of 21-year-old Trevon Cole, who was shot and killed while narcotics detectives served a night-time search warrant on his apartment in June. Cole was unarmed and undercover detectives had purchased less than 2 ounces of marijuana from him in the weeks before the raid.

"I can tell you that when I got my 48-hour briefing on that particular shooting, I had some concerns in regards to the level of narcotics purchased and the level of search warrant that was used," Gillespie said.

There were also several errors in the affidavit that led to the warrant. Detective Bryan Yant, the officer who shot Cole, claimed in the affidavit that Cole had an "extensive" criminal history involving narcotics in Houston and Los Angeles. The Review-Journal found that was not true.

"It definitely has given rise to me to take a look at what warrants are being served and who is serving those warrants," Gillespie said.

Yant's shooting was one of 18 the department has seen this year, and one of several that have been controversial. Just weeks after Cole was killed, 38-year-old Erik Scott was shot by three officers outside a Costco store in Summerlin.

Scott's family and members of the media have asked the department to release the 911 recording and the surveillance tapes from the incident, and on Tuesday the sheriff again urged patience.

"I don't see those being released prior to the inquest," he said. "The DA feels, and so do the investigators, that they contain information that's crucial to the case."

Surveillance footage of the shooting might not exist, he said. The Costco's video hard drives have been sent to experts in California for review, but "as it stands right now, we don't have any (footage)," he said.

Cole's inquest has been scheduled for Aug. 20. The inquest for Scott's death has been delayed indefinitely.

Gillespie said he understands the public has questions about the shootings, and that he will look at the department's policies in those cases after the inquests.

"Whether it's the jail, and how they were conducting business inside there" or the department's driving policies, Gillespie said, "I will take ownership of these things." He also said he would take corrective action if it's deemed necessary and that "it won't be done in a vacuum."

He added: "They (officers) are given a huge amount of authority in the job that they do, and when a life is taken, we can't circle the wagons, we can't throw up roadblocks. We have to be honest and forthright with what it is that we did, why it is we did it."

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