Sheriff: Arrest of sergeant accused of unlawful detentions a ‘huge stain’

Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill said the arrest of a Metro sergeant on suspicion of a “pattern of unlawful detentions” targeting citizens on the Las Vegas Strip is a “huge stain” on the department.

McMahill said he is aware of one former internal investigation of Sgt. Kevin Menon, who was arrested Aug. 30, accused of pretending to be a “suspicious person” in order to talk with people before arresting them. He is also accused of shoving a fellow of officer and provoking individuals, leading to their arrest without probable cause.

Menon was also the target of three federal lawsuits, court records show, all of which were eventually dismissed. One lawsuit was settled for $75,000, with the defendants — Metro, Menon and another officer — paying out to the plaintiff, a surgeon who encountered Menon during a 2018 traffic stop. The settlement was reached the same day that Menon was arrested.

According to Robert Wicks, public information officer for Metro, the other two lawsuits were dismissed before the department was notified. McMahill was unaware of their existence, he said in an interview Tuesday.

“It’s an embarrassment,” McMahill said of Menon’s alleged actions. “It’s certainly not injecting humanity into all that we do, as I expect from my officers.”

A former internal investigation

McMahill said he was aware of a “previous internal investigation” involving Menon “a couple of years ago,” but he said he hasn’t gotten the complete report yet.

While the sheriff said he doesn’t know to which incident the investigation is related, he said it was separate from one allegation contained in Menon’s arrest report, which said he had filed a complaint about his own behavior without disclosing his involvement in the incident.

When a victim named in Menon’s arrest report called 911 to report unlawful detention, Menon put on a Metro jacket to file the complaint, never revealing he had been acting as a “suspicious person” leading up to the victim’s detention, the report said.

McMahill said that he was not aware whether the previous internal investigation into Menon related to any of the lawsuits filed against him.

“I’ll be getting an entire report on what it is that we know leading up to all of this; it’s just not done yet,” McMahill said. “As we go back in to sort of hotwash what it is that we missed and how we missed it — how we could have done better, discovered it earlier — all of those things will come out.”

Metro’s early warning system

Metro operates an early warning system that notifies the department when an officer’s behavior is raising red flags, according to McMahill.

The sheriff said he did not know whether anything Menon did triggered the early warning system. “It’s a good indication of whether it’s effective or not,” McMahill said, adding that moving forward Metro will be reviewing the system.

“One of the big questions that I have is, when you look at what an early warning system does, are we utilizing all of the different pieces and parts of an organization to include things like lawsuits in that early warning system?” McMahill said.

The sheriff said he has evidence that lawsuits have, at times, been included in the early warning system. However, he said doesn’t know if this is standard practice.

McMahill said that while “it certainly raises a red flag anytime one of my officers is sued,” the lawsuit brought against Menon and Metro in 2020 in which the plaintiff alleged he was unlawfully detained in a 2018 traffic stop “didn’t raise a lot of red flags for me at the time.”

The lawsuit alleged that surgeon Martin Uwah was pulled over in a parking lot and slammed into the hood of a police vehicle without being provided a reason for his arrest.

“We get a lot of lawsuits, no doubt about it. Taking in context with the larger picture today, I think that’s part of why I’ve ordered the review that I’ve ordered,” McMahill said. “I want to see how we could have done better on that.”

Quotas: ‘100 percent not happening’

In an interview with police, Metro Officer Erik Sanchez, who worked with Menon, said he felt that the sergeant’s actions were “likely linked to his desire to arrest more subjects for statistics.”

The idea that officers are given quotas or targets for a number of arrests to make is an allegation that McMahill said “comes around all the time” but that he said is not true.

“I’m very interested in reducing violent crime, but I’m always interested in doing that in a constitutional way,” McMahill said, adding that quotas are “100 percent not happening.”

Metro began investigating Menon after four unnamed officers from his area command turned to Gregory Stinnet, a Metro officer and Las Vegas Police Protective Association secretary, to share their concern’s about their squad’s direct supervisor.

“I’m really proud of my officers for coming forward with this,” McMahill said.

“It tells you a lot about the overall men and women of this organization. And so while this is a huge stain and a big challenge for me as we continue to move forward, I think there’s some bright spots in this, as well.”

Contact Estelle Atkinson at eatkinson@reviewjournal.com. Follow @estellelilym on X and @estelleatkinson reports on Instagram.