Officers' techniques often challenged

In what police described as a wrestling match with three security officers at the Las Vegas Club, a customer's head was held in a neck lock until he lost consciousness.

Eleven days later 31-year-old Howard Hunter died as a result of his injuries. Casino officials argued that the October 1995 incident began when an intoxicated Hunter, an unemployed security guard, refused a bartender's request to leave the property. That led to the altercation with the three casino officers.

Despite its defense the casino agreed in February to pay Hunter's family more than $1.4 million in a settlement of the plaintiffs' wrongful death lawsuit. The family had argued that the casino officers continued to apply the choke hold on Hunter even after he was unconscious. The casino also was accused of having inadequately trained its employees in "appropriate confrontational techniques."

"They were negligently trained and undertrained," family attorney Brent Bryson said. "They were told to go out and buy handcuffs, yet they were never trained to use handcuffs. They were not trained at all in how to handle someone who was unruly. The guards just had to wing it and use their own life experiences."

Accusations of inadequate training along with alleged insensitivity are common threads in lawsuits filed by customers against casinos and their security officers.

In a case involving the Gold Coast hotel-casino, stemming from a 1994 incident, a black man named Dedric Holman was playing blackjack when his 29-year-old white girlfriend, Christina Edwards, said she was asked to prove she was 21. When she couldn't produce identification, she was ordered to leave the casino.

When Edwards asked Holman to take her home so she could get her identification, he said he told the security officer he would leave after finishing his hand and cashing in his chips.

When Holman laughed at the officer's order to leave immediately he said the officer attempted to place him in a choke hold. Holman said he broke free and bolted for an exit, but he was stopped by other officers and alleged that he was beaten by them. Leo Flangas, who represented the plaintiffs, said race was a factor in the incident and that his client suffered internal injuries and vision problems.

The hotel's officers denied that Holman was beaten but a jury in District Judge Gary Redmon's court ruled last month in his favor by awarding him more than $450,000. Edwards, who also complained of being fondled and roughed up by an officer, was awarded $114,000.

"They give someone a badge and a billy club and that's the only instruction they get," Flangas said. "There should be some type of state-mandated courses that these security officers should take. Some of these security guards don't know how to handle situations.

"I don't know if having a review board is going too far. But right now the only way a customer can complain is to file a lawsuit or a police report. And no district attorney will pursue a report against a casino unless it's egregious. That's just the way of life."

Flangas has joined fellow Las Vegas attorney Patrick Nohrden in defending another man who alleged he was beaten by four plainclothes security officers at the Golden Nugget hotel-casino in January 1998. Pablo Delgado, who escaped from Cuba three years ago and now has permanent residency in Las Vegas, was complaining to his wife that an Hispanic bartender refused to serve him a drink.

In his lawsuit against the hotel, which is not expected to go to trial until next year, Delgado alleged that the officers tackled him after he attempted to leave the property upon their demand. He said they later beat him in an elevator, handcuffed him and refused to allow him to go to the restroom after they took him to an interrogation room. Delgado said he sought medical attention the following day.

Nohrden said one issue in Delgado's case was that his client had problems communicating because of his broken English. Nohrden said the hotel had a Spanish-speaking security officer on duty but he was not available until Delgado was brought into the interrogation room.

The hotel, in its response to the lawsuit, stated that the officers first approached Delgado because he was conversing loudly with his wife. The security officers alleged that one of them was shoved in the chest by Delgado. The hotel added that there was no negligence in the way the officers treated him.

But a misdemeanor battery charge against Delgado was dropped after an assistant city attorney viewed a casino videotape that Nohrden said showed his client hadn't attacked the officer as alleged by the hotel. Golden Nugget also attempted to get the Delgado lawsuit dismissed but that motion was rejected by Clark County District Judge Mark Gibbons.

Meantime, security officer Rebecca Reynolds and former officer Maleen Millmine of Circus Circus Enterprises filed a federal lawsuit against the resort company last month alleging that male officers were spying on unspecified individuals having sex on company property. The women also complained that they were the victims of sexual harassment by their male counterparts.

The company has declined comment on the lawsuit but noted that the sexual harassment claim was already rejected in a separate action by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Cliff Holder, director of corporate security for Santa Fe Gaming Corp., said he would support a cap on damage claims made against casinos, noting that the resort industry is an easy target for litigation because it is viewed as a cash cow. The days when resorts were sued for a mere $50,000 are long gone.

"Now the average is up to about $1 million, and that's a big incentive for attorneys," Holder said. "There's concern there because for the smaller places it's hard for them to take a hit like that."

Opponents of caps on damages have argued that corporations couldn't be encouraged to change their ways if they knew they'd only have to pay a limited amount of money.

Having served as a forensic training expert at trials involving security personnel, D. Anthony Nichter of Las Vegas said casinos are at a disadvantage because juries figure the resorts have enough money to train their officers properly.

"What you spend in the courtroom is 10 to 20 times what you should have spent in the classroom," he said. "Last year casinos grossed $7.2 billion in Nevada. When you tell the jury about that cash flow and then the casinos say they don't have enough money for training the jury doesn't trust that."

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