District attorney’s office doesn’t treat police shootings like other Las Vegas homicides

LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

13 years ago

Kimeryn Williams speaks during a vigil for her nephew Trevon Cole outside of the apartment where he was killed in Las Vegas. Las Vegas police officer Brian Yant shot and killed Cole, who was unarmed, during a raid of his apartment in June of 2010.

Prosecutors in many American cities step in as the public’s watchdog in the aftermath of a police shooting, but the Clark County district attorney’s office is content to sit on the sidelines. It doesn’t treat shootings by police like other homicides and it won’t even review an officer’s use of deadly force unless the sheriff or a chief of police requests it.

And when it comes to presenting the facts of a fatality at a coroner’s inquest, prosecutors switch hats and instead become the police officer’s defense.

In the fourth in a five-part special series, the Review-Journal found that the much-maligned inquest system is a red herring, designed to divert attention from a system that protects errant officers from the minute they shoot until the coroner’s jury rules their actions justified.