Mandatory reporting of school violence recommended

"The problem is crimes are not getting reported to us," said Henderson Police Chief Tom Burns, a member of the commission.

Commissioners decided after a daylong hearing Wednesday to prepare a bill that would mandate school police or administrators contact local police for assistance in handling violent crimes.

The commission was created by the Legislature last year in response to the killing of 12 students and a teacher by two students at Columbine High School near Denver.

Wednesday's meeting was the last for the commission, whose recommendations will be considered by the Legislature next year.

The only fireworks in the final meeting were verbal clashes between members of the Clark County School District Police Officers Association and the Las Vegas police.

Phil Gervasi of the Police Officers Association said 10,000 crimes are committed annually on Clark County school campuses. Forty-five percent of them are felonies, he said.

He added that his police "train in the same classrooms as Metro" and are professional police.

But he said at times school administrators themselves fail to contact school police to investigate major crime on campus. In one case, according to Gervasi, a student was beaten unconscious by another student and school police never were notified.

Gervasi expressed concern the recommendation to call local police would mean his officers would be bypassed by school administrators.

"They will call Metro directly," he said.

Las Vegas police Lt. Stan Olsen said after the hearing that police are not trying to imply school police are less than professional.

"But they don't have the same level of experience that we have," he said. "We must preserve the crime scenes, get in on the investigation as early as possible. They have felt they could do it by themselves and sometimes they exceeded their expertise."

Olsen said local police do not have to respond "when one kid punches another kid and he gets a bloody noise." But he added school police and administrators know the kind of incidents for which the primary police agency should be notified.

He said he was confident that the new police chief the Clark County School District will soon hire will work closely with Las Vegas police, developing procedures for schools to follow in the mandatory reporting of crime.

Commission members, however, decided there should be no penalty if school police or administrators do not call in local police for help.

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