Paiute officers keep peace in downtown Las Vegas

It's another quiet day for those who enforce the law in this tiny sovereign nation in the middle of Las Vegas.

A slow day is a good day for the nine officers who work for the Las Vegas Paiute Police Department. And most days are good.

The officers don't get a lot of attention from the wider community. Many people don't even know they're there, based on about 18 acres of tribal land on Main Street near Washington Avenue.

That's fine with them.

"I've had my excitement," Police Chief Don Belcher said. "I like it slow."

Belcher, who previously worked robbery and homicide for a police department in Oklahoma, now enjoys focusing on community policing -- building relationships with the people he serves.

Among other things, Belcher's officers read to local children, run a cadet program for young people, organize community cleanups and help with the annual pow wow in May.

But Tonia Means, Paiute tribal chairwoman and former police chief, wants you to know the officers also mean business. They have the authority to enforce the law, even off the reservation.

Sometimes people see tribal police driving in the city's core and think they can't "pull your rear-end over," Means said. "They can, and they do."

SOVEREIGN NATION

The Las Vegas Paiute Tribe has about 65 members. Their ancestors occupied territory that included part of the Colorado River, most of southeastern Nevada and parts of both Southern California and Utah.

In 1911, local ranch owner Helen Stewart deeded a plot of land near downtown to the Paiutes. The tribe later was recognized as a sovereign nation. Las Vegas boomed around the land. About 50 people now live in homes lining a few quiet cul-de-sacs there.

A 1983 act of Congress gave the tribe an additional 3,800 acres of land at Snow Mountain, about 20 miles northwest of downtown, which tribal police also patrol. That land now includes three tribe-owned golf courses, a gas station, a handful of homes belonging to tribal members and a lot of Joshua trees.

The tribe also operates the Tribal Smoke Shop on Main Street and has its own health clinic, child development center, cemetery and court.

The most common crime tribal officers deal with is theft, including shoplifting at the smoke shop, mainly committed by "individuals coming onto the reservation," Belcher said.

"We've never had an officer-involved shooting," Means said. "We've never had an officer killed in the line of duty."

But several high-profile local crimes in the past decade had links to Paiute land or police.

In the summer of 2008, Las Vegas police found the body of 17-year-old Nichole Yegge in a shallow desert grave at Snow Mountain. Police had surreptitiously followed Gabriel Yates, a suspect in Yegge's disappearance, to the site. He and his girlfriend, Anne Marie Osburn, pleaded not guilty to charges including kidnapping and murder in the case and are awaiting trial.

In October 2003, a man sparked the suspicion of a Paiute tribal police officer near Lake Mead Boulevard and Buffalo Drive. When the officer approached him, the man took the officer's pistol at gunpoint and stole his marked police car. It turned out the man, Daniel Nunez, had shot and killed another man before carrying out a series of carjackings. After stealing the tribal police officer's car, Nunez engaged in a gunbattle with Las Vegas police, during which he stole a police sport utility vehicle that was carrying a police dog. He killed the dog and then himself.

And in the summer of 2002, David Flores -- Tonia Means' nephew -- was shot and killed by John Wesley Whittington at a home on the Las Vegas Paiute reservation. Whittington, who was originally charged with murder, said he shot Flores in self-defense. Federal prosecutors dismissed the murder charge against him after a witness recanted his testimony and the FBI lost the shirt Flores was wearing when he was shot.

FELONIES RARE

Felonies committed on tribal land are handled by the FBI, with cooperation from tribal police. Such incidents are rare. Tribal officers are grateful for that.

"I like it quiet," officer Darrell Dawkins said. "That's the reason I came here."

Dawkins, who previously served with Belcher at the Lawton Police Department in Oklahoma, also worked homicide there for years. He came to work for the Paiutes six years ago.

"I just got tired," he said during a patrol at Snow Mountain. "Every place I went I could say, 'I worked a homicide there.' "

That doesn't happen anymore. Officers respond to more minor disturbances, such as the occasional argument between tribal residents. On such calls it helps that none of the officers is Paiute, Means said.

"I'm really happy we have officers who don't have a personal connection here," she said. "It's really hard when you go on a call and you're watching your own relatives."

Back at tribal police headquarters, officers are in the middle of another low-key shift.

While they don't handle many high-profile crimes, they remain ready for anything, Means said.

You never know, she said: "It could be one of our police officers that saves your life."

Contact reporter Lynette Curtis at lcurtis@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0285.