Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo delivers his annual State of Department address at the Smith Center Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2020.
Friday, March 20, 2020 | 3:38 p.m.
Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo says Metro Police stand ready to enforce Gov. Steve Sisolak's stepped-up order Friday for non-essential businesses throughout Nevada to shut down for 30 days as a precaution against the spread of coronavirus.
Interviewed shortly before Sisolak announced his strengthened order, Lombardo said he and his administrative team had been in contact with the governor's office regarding enforcement of the Sisolak's directive.
He said the effort would include multiple agencies and would begin with civil action, most likely license suspensions. If those orders were to be defied, he said, Metro could step in and levy a criminal citation. The nature of the criminal penalties wasn't immediately available, nor were the penalties for violations.
Sisolak's initial closure order, which came Tuesday evening, applied to the state's casinos and such nonessential businesses as bars and dine-in restaurants, cinemas, gyms and nail salons. Essential businesses that were exempted from the order included grocery stores, pharmacies, banks, fuel stations and hardware stores.
But amid reports that Sisolak's authority to force closures didn't extend beyond casinos, some nonessential businesses opted to remain open. On Thursday, Metro announced it wasn't able at that point to enforce the directive without an executive order.
Then came the conversations between Sisolak's office and law enforcement, however, and Sisolak said in his Friday announcement that local jurisdictions would be in charge of enforcing and determining punishment for nonessential businesses that defy the order.
For Metro, the closure orders are a new element of the department's response to the outbreak, which is posing a unique challenge to the department.
Metro Police train to confront the “unknown" — any situation ranging from a domestic violence call to a mass-casualty incident — but that critical response usually has an end time. Even after the Oct. 1, 2017, mass shooting, Lombardo said, the agency was able to find a sense of normalcy after a few weeks.
But there's no telling how long the COVID-19 pandemic will play out.
“This is an unknown enemy that we have no idea how long it’s going to continue," Lombardo said.
The novel virus had infected at least 74 people in Clark County as of Thursday. As it spreads, Lombardo said, so does the chance of officers encountering it while out on patrol.
Metro is working to protect its officers from the disease while also preparing for a possible increase in domestic violence cases as the outbreak causes tensions and economic hardship in self-isolating households. If business layoffs are extensive and desperation grows, such happened following the 2008 recession, Lombardo said he feared an increase of crime in the valley.
But Lombardo said his immediate worry was that patrol officers had to ration out their personal protective equipment. Metro was running low on surgical masks, but hotel resorts that were shut down have donated their supplies. Police this week were instructed to try to maintain a distance from the public in interactions and wear protective gear when conducting arrests. As of Friday morning, none of his officers had tested positive for COVID-19, he said.
“Officers need to be able to protect themselves,” Lombardo said. “If they’re infected, they can’t help.”
As street activity in the valley has dwindled, officer assignments have also been adjusted, he said. in-service training staff and certain detective units have shifted to patrols.
Lombardo said that it was too early to tell how self-isolation measures had immediately affected police’s workload. But before this month, the department was already dealing with an uptick of street robberies.
Most Metro facilities have shut down to the public, citizens are encouraged to use online services for reports and community policing events have been canceled, but police continue to patrol the streets as usual, Lombardo said.
He asked the public for patience as the valley gets through the pandemic, which he called “precedent setting” and unlike anything he’d experienced in his career — or his lifetime.
