Safety in Las Vegas parks a concern for City Council

Las Vegas city marshals were summoned to Lorenzi Park nearly as often as they were called to the Fremont Street Experience in 2016, a statistic that underscores a growing concern about safety in city parks.

Seven parks were among the 10 areas with the highest volume of calls to marshals, according to a presentation to the City Council this month. Fremont Street Experience, the Las Vegas Detention Center and City Hall were the others.

Lorenzi Park, with 271 calls for service last year, was one call behind the Fremont Street Experience.

The city’s tentative budget presentation this month included a plan to grow the city marshal force by 33 over the next three years, in part to put more law enforcement in parks.

Marshals spent nearly 12,000 hours patrolling city parks in 2016. City officials hope the additional officers will spend nearly 18,000 hours annually patrolling parks and decrease average response times from 10 minutes to under 8 minutes.

But Councilman Bob Coffin said a three-year, phased-in approach is not enough.

“You can’t fight crime incrementally,” he said. “We need them all now.”

The tentative proposal for next year includes 11 marshals, one lieutenant and three sergeants.

Marshals comprise the city’s law enforcement arm, separate from the Metropolitan Police Department, which Las Vegas jointly funds with Clark County. Metro responds to 911 calls from city parks, but Councilman Steve Ross said having marshals in parks can temper criminal activity there “a lot.”

Councilman Stavros Anthony, a retired Metro captain, said marshals fill a gap by patrolling parks where homeless people tend to stay.

“Metro really doesn’t have the time to patrol in our city parks,” Anthony said.

Ward 3 busiest

The city has 53 deputy city marshals, and 43 of them patrol 77 city parks as well as recreational centers and city-maintained trails. The Fremont Street Experience is within their jurisdiction. The city budgeted $10.5 million for city marshals in the current fiscal year’s $532 million general fund spending plan. Nearly $139 million went to the Metropolitan Police Department.

Coffin represents Ward 3, which covers eastern Las Vegas and a significant portion of downtown. Last year, 36 percent of the calls marshals received were from Ward 3, while 29 percent came from Ward 5.

City Council candidate Michele Fiore, who is vying to represent Ward 6, supports adding more marshals.

“To the extent that the additional marshals will be working with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department to enhance public safety and reduce crime, I support allocating additional funds toward new city marshals,” Fiore said in an email. “However, I want to emphasize that the city should be constantly looking for ways to improve service and cut costs to maximize the benefit to taxpayers.”

A previous version of this story misstated the number of Las Vegas city marshals.

Contact Jamie Munks at jmunks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0340. Follow @JamieMunksRJ on Twitter.