Metro: Crime around Fremont St. down with bans for repeat offenders

There has been a 10% decrease in victims of crime on the Fremont Street corridor and an “astonishing” decrease near the Strat within the last year thanks to the city’s order out policy that was established last November, according to Metro Police.

“I do believe that this is impacting our violent crime in those two corridors,” said Metro Police Capt. Adam Seely told the Las Vegas City Council today. “The significance of this is ... we’re talking about less victims of crime. I do believe it is a result of the partnership and the policing that we’ve been doing in both areas and the fact that we’ve been able to have fewer victims of crime in both areas.”

The city of Las Vegas unanimously approved on Nov. 15, 2023, the banning of individuals who had convictions for repeated crimes from two tourist-heavy corridors — the neighborhood in and around Fremont Street in downtown and the north end of the Las Vegas Strip surrounding the Strat.

People who are “ordered out” of one corridor are not allowed to enter the other, City Attorney Jeff Dorocak noted during a presentation at today’s city council meeting.

Assistant City Attorney Carlene Helbert told council the policy allows Metro to ban people from these tourist corridors for repeated misdemeanors as opposed to putting them in jail.

“We’re not doing this on first-time offenses; we know that it is a specific tool and we don’t want to criminalize people who aren’t being criminalized,” Helbert said.

The order out ruling came after repeated reports of crime in the two areas, including two separate shootings that occurred near the Fremont Street Experience.

Metro was ordered to return with a progress report on the policy six months after the ordinance’s passage so the council could consider expanding the corridor borders.

From Nov. 27, 2023, to June 30, there were 246 defendants instructed to order out, according to data presented by Helbert. Nine of these defendants were sentenced twice — meaning they committed a crime, were ordered out, returned later, were “closed out” with jail time, then went back again and were ordered out a second time.

Most violations — over 200 — occurred within the Fremont Street Experience from Maine Street to Las Vegas Boulevard. Fremont East had 31 defendants violate the order out rule, and the area near the Strat had only seven, the data showed.

Trespassing is the most frequent offense, with battery in second, obstructing or giving false information to an officer in third and disturbing the peace in fourth.

Order outs can last from six months to a year, Helbert said during her presentation.The majority of defendants — 236 — are ordered out for one year, she added.

Andrew Simon, president and CEO of the Fremont Street Experience, commended the city council for their investment in law enforcement and safety downtown. He explained to council members how his employees at the Fremont Street Experience constantly see the same people “day after day” coming back to commit repeated crimes, but now law enforcement has a way to prevent that.

“To me, this is a huge tool and a huge part of public safety,” he told the council. “For me to even retain employees and tell them Hey, we’re going to do something this time, this has been a huge bonus for us to have that our friends at Metro and marshalls have been able to have some tools to enforce.”

While Seely thinks the corridor around the Strat is fine, he admitted that the Fremont Street area should be extended north to the Main Street Casino and west to the Plaza Hotel because “those are very similar areas of where the rest of the corridor is and (law enforcement) see the exact same types of crimes when it comes to violent crime, property crime, public disorder in those areas.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Nevada, the NAACP Las Vegas, Clark County Black Caucus, Make the Road Nevada, Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada and the Cupcake Girls spoke out against the ordinance in November.

Tatiana Smith, an attorney with the ACLU of Nevada, told the council last year that the proposal is “unconstitutionally overbroad” and said it would “likely result in unconstitutional profiling as well as serious violations of the 1st and 14th Amendments.”

The order out corridors, including those that Clark County imposed in August 2022, are still up for appeal within the Nevada Supreme Court, Dorocek said, so the rule could still be ruled as unconstitutional and struck down. Dorocek added that they’re still waiting to hear back from the courts but are still working together with local law enforcement.

The ACLU of Nevada filed a joint amicus brief with the Fines and Fees Justice Center, Nevada Attorneys for Criminal Justice and the UNLV Misdemeanor Clinic at the Boyd School of Law in August 2022 to the Nevada Supreme Court against Clark County’s ordinance.

Dorocak said the city will begin working on trying to expand the order out corridor for the Fremont Street area north and west as Seely recommended.

“We are aware of what the public and everyone is interested in this type of legislation, and we are here to try to lay it out as properly as possible and be neutral arbiters to how we do it, to make sure it’s done well and right,” Dorocak said on Wednesday.