Sheriff puts officers back to work pending inquests

New Clark County coroner's inquest rules have prompted the Metropolitan Police Department to end a long-standing policy of placing officers involved in fatal shootings on paid leave until cleared by a coroner's jury.

Over the past five months, at least a dozen officers have been placed on routine paid leave after fatal shootings or in-custody deaths. But there hasn't been an inquest in that time, and none is scheduled before late May.

Because of the delay, the department has allowed almost all of the officers to return to work in desk jobs or light-duty assignments in which they have no contact with suspects.

"There's really no reason we need to leave these officers sitting at home," said Kathy O'Connor, chief of staff for Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie. "We're just looking to be as efficient as we possibly can."

O'Connor, a 25-year Las Vegas police veteran, said that for as long as anyone can remember, the department has kept officers off work until after an inquest. The policy, common in police work, is intended to give the officer time for counseling and to recover emotionally from the incident.

But changes in the county's inquest process and delays in its implementation have the department re-evaluating whether it can afford to have officers off for months at a time. Officers now are being evaluated for return to duty on a case-by-case basis while the department develops a new policy.

Both the delay in inquests and the suspension of the leave policy result from last year's Clark County Commission overhaul of the inquest process aimed at improving accountability and openness.

Twenty years ago, inquests were held as little as two weeks after a fatal officer-involved shooting. More recently, the typical interval was six weeks. Now they will take place four to six months after an incident, said Assistant Coroner John Fudenberg.

Inquest jurors also will no longer render verdicts of justified, excusable or criminal. They will merely determine facts, such as who died and when, where and how.

Inquest juries have gone 35 years without rendering a criminal verdict .

The most dramatic change is the addition of inquest ombudsmen to cross-examine officers and other witnesses. Commissioners this month approved seven ombudsmen, including former District Court Judge David Wall. They will represent the family of the deceased and counter the district attorney, who leads the proceeding.

"People didn't believe the district attorney acted as an impartial party in the past," Fudenberg said. "I disagreed with that, but they were accused of being partial."

Because of the ombudsmen, officers probably will not choose to participate.

Chris Collins, president of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, said participation would open up his officers to criminal and civil liability. He said four attorneys  all came to that conclusion.

"We warned them, if you will, that if they made this process so adversarial we would not participate," he said.

Inquests into police-involved deaths are highly unusual in America. King County, Wash., uses the system, but in most urban areas the district attorney privately reviews the case to determine if the officer acted legally. Inquests provide a rare glimpse for the public into how, and why, people die at the hands of police. The new Clark County process, for example, requires all hearings to be televised live on the county's public access television channel.

Fudenberg said he expects inquests to resume in late May, and hopes to be caught up by the end of the year.

Eight inquests are in the queue, including those for two people who died after officers used a Taser on them. One involved a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper, five are for Las Vegas police shootings, and one a North Las Vegas police shooting.

While the time between a fatal shooting and an inquest won't shrink, the length of inquests likely will as officers sit them out.

"It's a shame," Collins said. "The process before worked. It was open to the public. And now, in my opinion, the tail wagged the dog and the small vocal minority has taken away what was once an open process."

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