Steps that could reduce police shootings blocked by union

A police force that shoots and kills more often than comparable urban departments. A rubber-stamp review system that erodes public confidence in law enforcement. An insular police culture lacking in accountability and the ability to change.

All were key findings of the Review-Journal's year-long investigation into Southern Nevada police shootings (www.lvrj.com/deadlyforce). And all have a common denominator: a politically powerful, reform-resistant police officers union.

Time and again, the Las Vegas Police Protective Association has been a barrier to greater transparency and more thorough, outside oversight of officer-involved shootings. It has consistently made protecting police from scrutiny a greater priority than improving police policies, preventing shootings and making officers and the public safer in the process.

There is no greater evidence of this obstructionism than the union's opposition to badly needed coroner's inquest reforms.

In more than 40 years of inquests into hundreds of police killings, only once, in 1976, were officers' actions deemed criminally negligent. And those officers were never prosecuted. Coroner's juries routinely found even the most controversial uses of deadly force justified.

So the county, with input from a special panel that included Sheriff Doug Gillespie and District Attorney David Roger, approved inquest reforms that include charging the citizen panels with determining facts instead of finding whether an officer was at fault, sharing investigative files with officers and relatives of the deceased, and having an ombudsman represent the families, as well as allowing officers to have a union attorney present.

The officers union responded to the reforms by threatening that officers would not only refuse to participate in inquests, but would refuse to give statements to fellow officers charged with investigating the use of deadly force.

Then the union sued. As a result, no inquests have been held this year, and the public has very little information on the department-record 11 killings carried out by Las Vegas police so far in 2011.

On Monday, a federal judge issued a decision that parallels a state court ruling from a month ago: The reformed inquest system does not violate officers' constitutional rights to due process and equal protection. Perhaps we finally will get a chance to see if the new inquests lead to greater transparency and public confidence. Assuming, of course, that officers show up.

But union barriers to open government and accountability have gone far beyond the inquest system. The union opposed the creation of the department's Citizen Review Board in the late 1990s, formed in response to the drive-by killing of a young man by off-duty officers. The volunteer board has the power to review Internal Affairs inquiries and can recommend officer discipline and policy changes, but its work is advisory, and it must receive a formal complaint before it can review a case. Union protests were behind the limited scope, and as a result the Citizen Review Board has always found police shootings justified.

Another so-called oversight panel, the Use of Force Review Board, cleared officers 497 out of 510 times from its 1990 inception through this May, and it has never ruled against an officer involved in a fatal shooting. Although the board has civilian members, union-loyal officers with a protect-their-own mentality have dominated the panel.

"In my opinion, the board lost its ability to objectively look at the facts of the case, even with civilians on the board, because civilians who would question whether or not an officer's actions were appropriate were often challenged or told they didn't have the expertise to even have an opinion," said former Undersheriff Rod Jett, who retired from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department last year as Mr. Gillespie's second in command.

"And also during those periods when we had commissioned officers on the board who had the character and the courage to raise issues as to whether or not the actions of the officer were appropriate, those individual officers were attacked," Mr. Jett said.

How bad is resistance from the union? When Mr. Gillespie was elected sheriff in 2006, he sought to require all officers to wear body armor, a rule in place at other police departments around the country. The union refused, saying such a mandate had to be agreed to through collective bargaining. The result: Only officers hired after 2008 must wear bulletproof vests.

The Review-Journal's investigation found that police shootings frequently result from violations of department policy, or from risky practices that have been acknowledged and stopped by other police forces because they needlessly put officers in danger. But even when Las Vegas officers are found to have violated department policy or put their own safety in jeopardy, they are seldom punished because the union relentlessly defends and advocates for even its worst officers through extensive appeals.

The Las Vegas Police Protective Association is the greatest obstacle to needed change. That county commissioners were willing to take on the union and pass coroner's inquest reforms is a testament to their courage. It is incumbent on them and Sheriff Doug Gillespie to challenge the union and push to give the new inquest format a chance to work.

But they must go further. Abolish the Use of Force Review Board -- it's a farce, and the official nature of its advisory rulings make the sheriff reluctant to overturn them, which protects the status quo. Expand the powers of the Citizen Review Board to allow it to initiate its own inquiries, and create an independent auditor's office, such as those that oversee police in Los Angeles, Denver, San Jose and Boise. These auditors respond to every officer-involved shooting, monitor such investigations from start to finish and identify systemic problems with departments, not just individual cases of officer error or misconduct. In Denver, this reform led to a 25 percent reduction in police shootings.

Police unions must help find solutions to the unacceptably high number of police shootings in Clark County -- 378 since 1990, with 142 resulting in death. Chris Collins, executive director of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, said his union might support an independent monitor -- if the person is knowledgeable and isn't anti-cop. Based on how police have treated civilians on the Use of Force Review Board, such a standard would seem to disqualify anyone with an open mind.

This is a critical issue for Southern Nevada. Without the public's trust, police cannot effectively investigate and prevent crime. Taxpaying citizens understand that police work can be exceptionally dangerous, and that oftentimes officers have no choice but to use their guns. But when police kill unarmed suspects or unnecessarily escalate situations that don't pose a threat to public safety, such actions erode that trust. Police are doing the public's business, and the public needs to know how its police forces function. They can't do that without transparency and accountability -- two things Las Vegas police are lacking, thanks in large part to its union.