Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo delivers the annual State of the Department address at the Smith Center Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022.
Sunday, July 24, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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As a retired Metro detective, I’ve experienced Sheriff Joe Lombardo’s leadership — which many of us felt was lacking — firsthand. Now that he’s running for higher office, it feels appropriate to shed light on his poor management of Metro.
I’m not here to tell you who to vote for. I’m simply here to share my insight into someone who I believe failed both Metro employees and his constituents once he took office as sheriff.
When Lombardo ran for sheriff in 2014, he campaigned on decentralizing Metro — or breaking up the different branches of the department and displacing officers who were specialized in a certain area, like gangs or narcotics. Many of us felt it was going to be a failure. We didn’t see a need to fix something that wasn’t broken but our guess was that Lombardo was only trying to differentiate himself from his opponent, who was uniquely qualified for the job and known for his excellent leadership skills.
Unfortunately, after getting elected and taking office in 2015, Lombardo immediately began to decentralize the department, including my assigned unit.
No more Gang Unit, Vice Unit, Violent Crime Section, Street Narcotics Unit, to name a few. To us, it was insulting. Detectives, line supervisors, and civilian staff who had belonged to these now-disbanded units were uprooted and ordered to work cases in areas in which they had no specific expertise. And to make matters worse, we weren’t provided with the necessary time, training and resources to be successful in these new specialties.
The department mandated two days of classes, hitting on introductory topics that are usually taught to new academy officers to provide a quick overview on what a specialized unit does. Generally, it was worthless, and none of the attendees I spoke to had anything positive to say about it.
We all had the understanding we were about to be uprooted for a campaign promise, placed away from headquarters and unable to have direct communication with other specialized units. We felt punished for doing our jobs.
Beyond receiving a paycheck, it was difficult to be motivated. We had worked hard to be placed in a certain specialization and strived to become experts in those areas, just to have it taken away after an election.
The benefit of decentralization, we were told, was that citizen complaints, crime reports and crimes in progress would be responded to and solved sooner. That’s good in theory — no one would disagree.
But officers and detectives need time to work large caseloads, which is difficult when they are expected to respond to everything required at a moment’s notice. Detectives are perpetually under pressure to make arrests and submit cases quickly. Management judges our worth based on the quantity of cases submitted, not the quality of our work. Statistics are everything.
Since decentralization, I have seen caseloads as high as 70-80 per detective. There’s simply not enough hours or enough detectives to give each case — and the victims and their families — the due diligence they deserve. At the same time, Clark County continues to grow, leading to more crime and incident reports.
Seven years later, I have not seen caseloads decrease, nor have I seen detective positions increase in any substantial way.
I, and many others in my position, felt the consequences of these decisions. So did Nevada families when crime rose after decentralization. It led to a spike in violent crime across the valley.
Metro was decentralized in July 2015. By the following April, homicides were up 91% from the same point the year before. While the homicide unit was left intact, the gang unit had been disbanded and Lombardo himself admitted the surge in homicides was linked to gang violence. Assaults and robberies also shot up at least 20%. There’s no denying that decentralizing Metro hurt more than it helped.
All for Lombardo’s political ambitions, it seemed.
Metro has now been forced to realize that decentralization did not work. The Gang Unit had to be reinstated. Vice is back as its own entity. “Street” narcotics officers are up and running.
The impression among officers and detectives is that Metro leaders cared little about individual employee successes. Rather, they desire a scapegoat.
Politicians talk a lot about their records and qualifications, but nothing speaks louder than a genuine account of their tenure. If this all sounds fine to you, vote for Lombardo. If you’re looking for someone who has solid leadership, sound judgment and owns their mistakes, Lombardo’s not the guy for the job.
Kirk Jordan lives in Las Vegas and worked at Metro for 31 years.
