UNLV cop's anti-gay e-mail draws no penalty

A UNLV police officer will not be disciplined by the department for sending an anti-gay e-mail to about 2,000 university computer users, the police chief says.

Gay activists say they are angered by the chief's decision not to punish Officer Bill Mason and plan to take the matter to university President Carol Harter this week.

About two weeks ago, Mason responded to a campus-wide e-mail announcement about gay and lesbian Coming Out Day by calling homosexuality a "mental illness" and the announcement "trash" in his own campus-wide e-mail.

Gay activists and other members of the UNLV community said the e-mail represented inappropriate conduct from an officer who is charged with protecting people in all minority populations, and they sought punishment for Mason.

But on Friday, UNLV Police Chief David Hollenbeck said that Mason, an 8-year department veteran and former member of the Chicago Police Department, will not be reprimanded.

"What is the appropriate disciplinary action for having an opinion?" Hollenbeck said. "What we need to be careful of is that his beliefs don't become actions, and I am comfortable that they won't. ... You can have inappropriate beliefs without inappropriate actions."

Hollenbeck said he was not surprised that Mason's opinion of homosexuals was negative but was disappointed that Mason sent the e-mail.

"I think the e-mail was inappropriate, but Bill is a deacon in his church and his church tells him certain things are sins. ... I don't think I was terribly surprised to know what his opinion was in this case, but he's free to speak. He was not speaking for anybody but himself."

Mason was not available for comment, but Hollenbeck said the officer is "shell-shocked" by the controversy, and he now claims that his e-mail was not meant to be sent to the entire campus community, only to the computer user who posted the Coming Out Day announcement.

Since the e-mail was sent, placards calling for Mason's termination have been posted anonymously around the UNLV campus, and he has reportedly received hostile, anonymous phone calls.

Gay activist Lee Plotkin, who is among those leading the effort to have Mason disciplined, said he does not endorse such phone calls.

He is seeking the termination of Mason, he said, because the e-mail causes gay students and faculty members to distrust the police department and may cause them to be hesitant to report crimes.

Additionally, he said everyone shares the financial burden of supporting the police department and should therefore be treated equally by department employees.

"Clearly I respect freedom of speech and freedom of religion, but here is someone who is disparaging an entire demographic that he is charged with protecting. He should be disciplined. No (disciplinary) action is not appropriate," Plotkin said. "Officer Mason should not be charged with protecting people he hates."

Hollenbeck said, "I don't know if you would even know if a person has a particular sexual orientation -- how would you know that? As police officers, we deal with a lot of people we're not real happy with, but we have professional ethics. I'm sure the officers who arrested (convicted murderer) Jeremy Strohmeyer weren't too happy with him, either, but they did their job."

UNLV police officers go through sensitivity-training courses before beginning work in order to educate them about minority groups, Hollenbeck said.

Plotkin plans to meet with the university president this week to discuss the issue. Harter condemned Mason's message in her own campus-wide e-mail on Oct. 14, but she stopped short of calling for his resignation.

In 1972, the American Psychological Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses.

A 1995 Nevada statute allows judges to impose increased sentences on offenders whose crimes were motivated by hatred of the victim's sexual orientation, race or religion.

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