Saturday, Feb. 22, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
As it keeps up with the Las Vegas Valley's rapid expansion, Metro Police's own growth is outstripping its ability to adequately select and train new officers.
Recruits have been issued guns and badges without passing background checks, according to internal police documents. And rookies with just a year or two of street experience are training them.
To compensate, Sheriff Jerry Keller has wielded a bigger stick than his predecessors, and more often. His zero tolerance toward misconduct is harsh and swift. Discipline, not just training, is being used to teach young officers integrity and proper conduct.
Still, police quality and the community's confidence in Metro are eroding because of the frequency and severity of malfeasance. Since Keller was elected in 1994, six officers have been arrested by fellow Metro cops on charges ranging from shoplifting to rape to murder. All were fired or resigned.
Other officers have harbored a felon, forced a prostitute to expose her genitals, yelled racial slurs at youths, forged personnel documents, lost $100,000 worth of cocaine and opened fire on a motorist without cause.
"I've noticed with my conversations with people that they have a lot of sarcasm," said Wade Leavitt, an insurance agent and volunteer member of the Metro Civil Service Board. "It used to be the only thing about cops was doughnut jokes. ... People are getting cynical. I don't know how you gain people's confidence back."
The side effects of the rapid hiring -- cursory background checks and inadequate training -- are illustrated in the drive-by killing allegedly committed by former Officer Ron Mortensen.
While off duty, the 31-year-old Las Vegan allegedly shot at a group of gang members and killed a 21-year-old Hispanic man. Mortensen's lawyer said his client felt threatened as he and a fellow officer drove through the gang-controlled neighborhood Dec. 28.
A Metro background investigator had recommended that Mortensen not be hired based on allegations that he was combative as a department store security guard and failed to report that he had been arrested for a misdemeanor traffic warrant.
The decision was overruled by then-Personnel Director Richard Meyers, who reported to Deputy Chief Paul Conner.
A personnel sergeant, Robert Bazar, said in internal police documents that he warned Keller in late 1993 when Keller was deputy chief of personnel that changes in hiring would result in inadequate background checks. Bazar alleges that Keller, already campaigning for sheriff, ignored his warning.
Keller, who declined to be interviewed but referred questions to Undersheriff Richard Winget, launched an investigation last month into the inadequate background checks. The personnel files of 147 police officers -- the entire graduating classes of the past three academies -- are being reviewed to see if they meet police standards. A report is expected Thursday.
The Internal Affairs Bureau investigation and the tightening of hiring standards came in direct response to Mortensen and two other officers charged with felony crimes. Earlier this month, Officer Arthur Sewall was nabbed in a Metro sting that caught him allegedly forcing a prostitute to give him oral sex. In October, Officer Mike Ramirez was fired and now faces criminal prosecution for allegedly forcing a couple to give each other oral sex as he watched.
"The goal is to fix the system that may have resulted in incomplete background investigations," Winget said. "Background officers who didn't do their jobs, ... they'll be out."
As public confidence in police drops with each new high-profile incident of misconduct, the morale of Metro's rank and file also drops. One officer said that when asked what he does for a living, rather than admit to being a Metro officer, he claims to be a private contractor employed by the city and county. Others talk about anger they harbor against the bad cops because of the shame they have brought down on the department.
"I love being a police officer and I love this department, but I just hang my head these past few weeks over what's been happening," said Sgt. Ken Young, an investigator.
Already cut off from the public, some cops feel further alienated by the frequent and stern use of discipline by supervisors. Some complain that the punishment is inconsistent and draconian. Officer Mark Beckerle was fired for surreptitiously transferring his $8.50 dry-cleaning bill to another officer while Detective Joe Kelly was suspended for losing a kilo of cocaine.
"The department is constantly urging its employees to show compassion for victims and even the defendants they have to arrest," said attorney Tom Beatty, who represents officers during disciplinary proceedings. "This department's employees would occasionally like some compassion shown for them and the job they have to do."
A few officers, who did not want to be named to avoid possible discipline, said the zero tolerance toward misconduct has them second-guessing themselves to the point where policing suffers.
A veteran with 20 years of police experience said officers are not arresting people out of fear they will be investigated for mishandling the arrests.
"They hammer everybody enough, everybody quits doing their jobs," the veteran cop said. "Seven out of 10 Internal Affairs Bureau cases are being sustained. That means you have a 70 percent chance if you're written up or a citizen complains about you that you'll be punished. ... But if you back away, you won't get in trouble."
Keller has pledged to hold his employees more accountable than ever before. Discipline usually is handed down a month after the improper behavior occurred. Keller's discipline has been upheld 30 percent more often by the Civil Service Board in a comparison with the final three years of retired Sheriff John Moran's administration.
"This agency stands tall," Keller told the SUN editorial board recently. "This agency will take its lumps on the chin. But I am getting tired of being hit below the belt."
The sheriff complained to the SUN that Metro's high standards are obscured by the community's preoccupation with bad behavior. Keller's administration has been dogged by high-profile employee misconduct. The same month Keller was sworn into office, a Metro officer ran a stop sign and killed a woman. Public protests prompted Keller to increase the severity of the officer's punishment.
Keller said the frequency and severity of misconduct can be traced to an unseasoned police force. "This is an age issue with our police department," he said.
Yet the average age and experience of Metro's officers is expected to decrease in the next four years. Metro will hire about 800 new officers by 1999. By then, roughly half of Metro's police force will have four years or less experience as Las Vegas cops.
Metro officials know that rapid hiring can lead to lower standards. The administration wants to avoid the damage that occurred in Miami, which expanded its force and dropped standards so low that convicted felons became cops. The similar though less severe result occurred in Clark County in the late 1970s and early '80s, when Sheriff John McCarthy added 100 new officers and quality slipped, the undersheriff said.
But despite the obvious lessons that could be learned, the same mistakes are recurring.
"It's hard now to fire a recruit," a former field training officer said. "They're really not interested in quality; they're interested in quantity."
But the officer's impression is not supported by recruit statistics that show since 1992, the number of cops weeded out during field training has remained relatively constant.
Shortly before Keller was elected sheriff, Metro officials cut field training officers' salaries, prompting some of the older and more experienced cops to quit the program. That caused Metro to draw from a younger and inexperienced pool of officers.
Until 1994, recruits were being trained by officers with two years on the force, which translated to about a year and three months of street experience. Keller increased the minimum level of experience to three years and street experience climbed to two years and three months.
But that did little to reassure some cops, who question the quality of training, and some training officers, who still smart from the loss in pay.
"How can you take a one- or two-year officer who can't find his ass with both hands and have him train others?" a former training officer asked. "It's the blind leading the blind."
The loss of experienced instructors is evidenced in police investigations: Witness accounts are tainted because interviews are conducted improperly and evidence is compromised, the officer said.
"We've got new guys kicking over shelves, touching things that they should not be touching," he said. "What have we done in the field training program to stop these problems? Not a goddamn thing."
Not true, counters Metro's top officers. Undersheriff Winget said Metro recently increased hiring standards to make it more difficult to overrule a recommendation against a hire. And officials are drafting a standard that would prevent anyone with a long arrest record -- even if it never resulted in convictions -- from becoming a cop.
Additional field training officers and academy instructors will be hired to meet the demands of the growing academies, with a record-setting class of 125 set to enter this fall. But the level of experience of field training officers (which Winget said ideally would be at the five-year mark) is not likely to change, given Metro's young force.
"There's a definite toughening of standards," Winget said. "It came about as a result of a problem, the problem we had with Sewall, Ramirez and Mortensen."
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