Interview with Sheriff Joseph Lombardo of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) on Thursday, Dec. 1, 2016.
Friday, July 14, 2017 | 2 a.m.
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Although Sheriff Joe Lombardo began discussing Clark County's sanctuary designation with U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, their conversation soon shifted to violent crime, opioids, gangs and prosecutions.
Lombardo described the hour-and-a-half-long meeting — which took place Tuesday, the evening before Sessions addressed state and local police on his visit to Southern Nevada — as being “very positive.”
One topic Lombardo and Sessions did not discuss was the state’s recent legalization of recreational marijuana. “I didn’t bring it up, he didn’t bring it up,” Lombardo said on Thursday.
Lombardo said he got the impression Clark County would no longer run into problems regarding the sanctuary label, noting that local officials have provided documentation to the federal government at its request.
Sessions and his staff asked for time to evaluate the documents before a decision is made, which would likely come in the form of a letter, Lombardo said.
Metro Police, which Lombardo oversees, has cooperated with the feds since 2008 through a 287(g) agreement.
Metro’s collaboration centers on procedures at the Clark County Detention Center.
When inmates are booked there, their identities are run through federal databases. If they come up as deportable, being those who have previous deportations or have been taken in on a violent criminal act, a detainer is placed on them, giving federal immigration agents up to 48 hours to pick them up after they’ve answered to their local charges.
Metro has maintained that it focuses on the "worst of the worst."
Since Jan. 3, federal agents have provided proper probable cause documentation to validate the detainers. More than 3,000 immigration-status interviews have been conducted, 694 detainers have been placed and 327 people have been picked up by federal agents. Right now, 169 people are at the Clark County Detention Center with detainers.
The agency has maintained that its efforts are post-arrest and that officers aren’t on valley streets enforcing federal law.
A Department of Justice inspector general’s memo last year listed Clark County among 10 jurisdictions that would be probed to determine compliance with federal immigration policy.
Local officials, including Lombardo, have maintained that the county is not a sanctuary jurisdiction.
Sessions on Wednesday said he’s not sure Clark County can be described as a sanctuary jurisdiction.
The officials on Tuesday discussed police issues, and Sessions wanted to ensure that the cooperation between local and federal law enforcement is strong, Lombardo said.
Metro lobbyist Chuck Callaway attended Wednesday’s event on Lombardo’s behalf. He noted that Lombardo asked for the Tuesday meeting because he wanted to discuss local issues law enforcement is facing.
Callaway, who did not attend the meeting but had direct knowledge of it, further described the conversation as being conceptual.
In his Wednesday speech, Sessions touched on violent crime, illegal immigration, transnational and street gangs, opioids and prosecutions.
Localizing his speech while discussing an upward trend of homicides experienced by many U.S. cities in the past two years, Sessions mentioned Eric Brooks, an 18-year-old recent Spring Mountain High School graduate whose body was found shot in the middle of a street late on June 30 near a park where he’d gone to meet someone.
Brooks is one of 75 people slain in Metro’s jurisdiction this year, about a 17 percent drop compared with the same time last year, which by the end of 2016 saw the highest number of homicides in 20 years, although the population’s doubled in that time period.
Other violent crime statistics:
Jan. 1 to July 8:
Forcible rapes (657) up 7.5 percent from same time last year; robberies (1,725) down 6 percent; shootings (994) up about 10 percent; murder arrests (109) up 24 percent.
