Rebecca Haile, left, a student at Nevada State High School, and De’Mahj Solomon, a student at Desert Oasis High School, speak during a protest against police violence in front of Clark County School District headquarters on West Sahara Avenue Friday, Feb. 17, 2023. A CCSD police officer was caught on cellphone video slamming a Black teen to the ground and kneeling on his back outside Durango High School last Friday.
Friday, Feb. 17, 2023 | 9:20 p.m.
A broad coalition of local community organizers — and youth — demanded police reform at a protest tonight outside the Clark County School District offices in response to a school police officer slamming a Black teen against a curb outside of Durango High School and kneeling on his back.
Crystal Villarin, a Las Vegas Academy of the Arts student, called on the district to take police out of the schools.
“We have all seen the video of what happened last week,” Villarin, 18, told a supportive crowd of several dozen people gathered outside district headquarters on West Sahara Avenue. “It saddens me that the authorities are there to justify these types of investments, but we do not have enough teachers, social workers or counselors at our schools.”
Robert Bush, President of the Las Vegas chapter of the National Action Network, said the video, captured on cellphone camera Feb. 9, speaks for itself: The clip, just under a minute long, shows a uniformed CCSDPD officer walking in the street to a police vehicle, detaining a boy with his hands behind his back. As he leaned the boy against the hood, another boy walked through the frame, holding out what appeared to be his own phone.
The officer then followed him, and they exchanged words, which were largely inaudible over the voices of several other people, although the second boy told the officer what sounded like “don’t touch me.” Within seconds, the officer wrapped his arms around the second boy from behind and took him to the ground, pinning him in the gutter with his knees on the boy’s back.
The officer also shoved a boy who approached and yelled “back the f— up” several times.
CCSDPD has said that officers were responding to a “report of a firearm near one of our schools” at the time but said nothing else about the circumstances around the incident.
Bush said the officer in the clip, whom CCSDPD has not publicly identified, needs to be fired.
“We are not anti-cop, we are anti-bad cop,” Bush said. “There needs to be a purge at all levels. It’s time for accountability.”
De’Mahj Solomon, a student at Desert Oasis High School, wants students to be taught their constitutional rights. He suggested that they learn their rights at the same time as when teachers read them their syllabus and inform them of school rules at the start of every year.
“There is an indecent amount of incidents that have happened that could have been prevented by us knowing our rights. A perfect example of this is the violation of the Fourth Amendment, the violation of unwarranted search and seizure,” said De’Mahj, 16. “This happens all the time, and students allow it because they don't know something we should be informed on.”
Quentin Savwoir, president of the Las Vegas branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), said police reform needs to be on the School Board’s agenda.
“We need to talk about this,” he said. “This needs to be a hearty, robust conversation about changing protocols, about getting police out of our schools, about seeing our young scholars as humans.”
CCSDPD Chief Mike Blackeye said the officer has been reassigned to administrative duties with no contact with the public until an internal investigation is complete.
CCSD Superintendent Jesus Jara has also ordered Blackeye to review the department’s use of force tactics, and the chief announced this week that the department is forming a community committee to provide feedback and reach an understanding of police operations and functions.
Facing public pressure to also weigh in, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said in a statement today that the matter has not come to his office.
“Although a case has not been submitted formally to the District Attorney’s Office, I have seen the same videos the public has seen, which have circulated on news outlets and social media,” Wolfson said. “If the investigating law enforcement agency – the Clark County School District Police Department – submits a request for prosecution to my office, I will review the matter to determine if we can prove the elements of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt, as I would any other case.”
Savwoir encouraged the crowd to urge Wolfson to take action without the police department’s request, because “our community deserves better, and our community will have better.” And he encouraged people to speak at the next School Board on Thursday, or at least attend and be seen.
“All of this is for naught if we don't do something after this,” he said.
