On the road with Metro
Five months after making some painful disclosures about the avoidable death of one of his officers, Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie stepped in front of cameras Tuesday to do it all over again.
Let's hope it's the last time he does so for a long, long time.
Mr. Gillespie reported that Las Vegas police officer Milburn Beitel violated multiple department policies -- and laws -- when he crashed his patrol car Oct. 7. Mr. Beitel, 30, was killed when he was ejected from the vehicle. His passenger and partner, officer David Nesheiwat, 25, was critically injured and remains hospitalized.
Neither officer was wearing a seat belt at the time of the crash, and they were traveling 71 mph on a stretch of Nellis Boulevard with a 45 mph speed limit even though they were not responding to a call. Their siren and emergency lights were off. Mr. Gillespie said Mr. Beitel swerved to avoid a car making a left turn from Washington Avenue, causing the patrol car to strike a tree and a pole and roll over.
The parallels between this crash and the May 7 crash that killed Las Vegas officer James Manor are deeply troubling. Officer Manor was traveling 109 mph on a stretch of Flamingo Road with a 45 mph speed limit, with his siren and lights off, without wearing a seat belt, when he crashed into a pickup making a left turn in front of him. Mr. Manor, 28, was responding to a domestic dispute that, tragically, turned out to be bogus.
During the May 20 news conference that Sheriff Gillespie held to reveal the circumstances of Mr. Manor's crash, he said he had formed a committee of executive staff members to evaluate department procedures and training for officers, and he said the department had delivered a message to officers about the dangers of speeding.
That message wasn't heeded.
It's a miracle that no civilians were seriously hurt in either of these crashes. Recall that in 2006, Nevada Highway Patrol trooper Joshua Corcran killed four illegal immigrants after rear-ending them at 113 mph -- with his siren and emergency lights off -- as he was trying to get home to eat dinner and take an online college course. Corcran was sent to prison, and state taxpayers had to pony up $2.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the victims' families.
And too many Las Vegans have anecdotes of police cars speeding past them on the streets -- even after Mr. Manor's death.
What's it going to take to get Las Vegas officers to slow down and obey the law? Mr. Gillespie now says supervisors will discipline officers or write citations when they fail to wear seat belts. Good luck with that.
Certainly, Las Vegas police should spare the public from participation in heavy-handed, federally mandated "Click It or Ticket" campaigns. And Mr. Gillespie and other law enforcement officials have no business traveling to Carson City to demand that the Legislature make seat belt violations a primary offense.
The sheriff deserves credit for being forthright about the circumstances of his officers' deaths. But Mr. Gillespie must take a stronger, more personal approach to make his subordinates fall in line and follow traffic laws. His previous orders, handed down through the chain of command, weren't followed.
That's a big problem.
The public's safety is at stake. The culture of the Las Vegas police force must change today, before anyone else dies.
