Las Vegas Sun

March 19, 2024

Metro silence over officer’s racially insensitive rant draws criticism

Sheriff Joe Lombardo

L.E. Baskow

Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, shown here at the Las Vegas State of the City address Thursday, Jan. 8, 2015, isn’t talking about the case of a detective who published a profanity-laced, racially insensitive rant on Facebook.

For more than a year, Metro Police officials have kept silent about the case of a detective who published a profanity-laced, racially insensitive rant on Facebook and barely got reprimanded.

Bobby Kinch’s outburst — in which he appeared to be rallying support for a “cleansing” — was revealed this month in a story in The Sunday that chronicled a subsequent internal investigation and a series of complaints by fellow officers about his behavior. The investigation ended with Kinch’s return to the department after he received a written reprimand, Metro’s lowest form of discipline. Department officials, who declined to speak in the Jan. 12 story, have remained silent, leaving many questions unanswered:

What were the findings of the internal investigation? Why wasn’t Kinch given harsher punishment? Did Metro do anything to prevent another outburst?

That silence from top Metro administrators has drawn criticism from minority advocates and at least one Clark County official, who say it suggests an aloof police culture and hesitance to face public scrutiny.

“I think it’s just indicative of how insular the department is,” Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani said. “There’s a system of checks and balances that seems to be lacking.”

Newly elected Sheriff Joe Lombardo, who came into office this month, declined to comment. So did his predecessor, Doug Gillespie, who was at the helm through the duration of the internal probe. Although Metro has officially kept quiet, a number of Kinch's fellow officers — speaking in anonymity — told The Sunday they had raised concerns about the matter to their supervisors and were upset that the department hadn't done more to discipline the detective.

Kinch, who was once vocal about the case, opted to stay quiet this week and said he had sought legal counsel.

Community leaders say they’re frustrated Metro officials haven't revealed details or guaranteed that Kinch doesn’t pose a public threat. The detective’s internal investigation and personnel record aren’t public in Nevada. (Those types of files are accessible in states with more open public records laws, such as Texas and Florida.)

“I think (Metro’s hesitance to speak) is a legitimate concern,” said Derek Washington, who heads a black activist group that calls itself the Black Democratic Empowerment Project. “I hope they’re not hiding behind the excuse that this is a personnel issue, because (Kinch) took it public.”

Kinch’s case comes to light as police nationwide struggle to quell a wave of anger at law enforcement brought on by the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo., and the chokehold death of a black man in Staten Island, N.Y.

Michael Brown’s death on Aug. 9 triggered racial tensions that led to protests, riots and confrontations between Ferguson’s predominantly black residents and its nearly all-white police force. Public unrest spread nationwide and intensified late last year after a Missouri grand jury decided not to indict the white officer that killed Brown and a New York grand jury also voted not to indict the Staten Island officer who put Eric Garner in a chokehold moments before he died last summer.

Metro for years has grappled with its own accusations of racial bias stemming from a series of officer-involved shootings in the 2000s. In 2011, the U.S. Justice Department stepped in to investigate Metro’s use of force. A similar review is underway in Ferguson. The Metro investigation, which concluded last year, found that an overwhelming majority of unarmed suspects shot by police since 2007 were black or Latino, and every suspect shot during an officer-initiated stop was a minority.

But while Kinch’s case raises questions about racial sensitivity at the department, civil rights advocates argue that Metro has to walk a fine line between maintaining decorum and protecting employees’ constitutional right to free speech.

Kinch got a written warning for violating the department’s social media policy, which bans on- and off-duty employees from posting comments “deemed detrimental to the department” that “ridicule, malign, disparage or otherwise express bias against any race, any religion, or any protected class of individuals.”

“Although the comments were deplorable, they were made on his own time,” said Amy Rose, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada. “(Metro) officials have to decide whether his actions interrupt the functioning of the office.”

Former Sheriff Bill Young, who preceded Gillespie and now works as head of security for Station Casinos, says supervisors face legal limitations when punishing bad behavior.

“Sometimes employees do all kinds of dumb stuff,” Young said. “If you can’t show that a person is completely incapable of doing a job, they can pretty much do whatever they want.”

Still, Kinch’s case has raised concerns within Metro: A high-ranking Metro official with knowledge of the investigation told The Sunday that the light reprimand “didn’t sit well with a lot of people” and “exposes some weaknesses we have in holding cops accountable.”

"If I, as a schoolteacher, had those apparent kinds of feelings and beliefs, co-workers might be worried then about how was I treating my students, colleagues or the general public," Giunchigliani said. “We can offer the department the benefit of the doubt, but since there's nothing in writing for us to look at, we can't tell what exactly is happening.”

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