Las Vegas Nevada TSA Agent Slapped Man’s Gentials As Punishment For Refusing To Enter X-Ray Machine

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – A frequent flier is speaking out about an incident in which a TSA agent allegedly slapped his testicles as punishment for opting out of the naked body scanner at a Nevada airport.
Steven deForest was flying out of Las Vegas when the incident occurred.

“A bulky young TSA agent came over to pat me down,” he told the Huffington Post. “He told me to turn around. He was using his command voice, barking orders. I told him that I wasn’t comfortable turning away from my luggage, which had already been screened, and wanted to keep it in my sight.”

According to deForest, the screener knelt down to begin the pat-down procedure before making a shocking move.

“As he raised his hands he was looking at me. Then he gave a quick flick and smacked me in one of my testicles,” deForest said.

The episode left deForest in a state of “humiliation, rage, and frustration,” according to the report.

DeForest believes the agent slapped his gentials as punishment for refusing to enter the backscatter x-ray machine. “I was deliberately assaulted by someone who knew that he could get away with it,” he stated.
While the motives of the TSA screener cannot be confirmed, other agents have already admitted to performing invasive pat downs in order to force air travelers to choose the body scanners instead.
TSA screeners described this goal to The Atlantic reporter Jeffrey Goldberg in 2010, when the enhanced pat downs were being implemented for the first time:

I asked [the screener] if he was looking forward to conducting the full-on pat-downs. “Nobody’s going to do it,” he said, “once they find out what we’re going to do.”
In other words, people, when faced with a choice, will inevitably choose the [body scanner] over molestation? “That’s what we’re hoping for. We’re trying to get everyone into the machine.”

“The obvious goal of the TSA is to make the pat-down embarrassing enough for the average passenger that the vast majority of people will choose high-tech humiliation over the low-tech [testicle] check,” Goldberg concluded. If deForest’s disturbing testimony is accurate, then Goldberg might just be right.

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Congressmen Press Army To Purchase Tanks That It Doesn’t Need – 2000 Parked In Nevada Collecting Dust And No New Purchases, Which Will Save Taxpayers Billions

HERLONG, CALIFORNIA – If you need an example of why it is hard to cut the budget in Washington look no further than this Army depot in the shadow of the Sierra Nevada range.

CNN was allowed rare access to what amounts to a parking lot for more than 2,000 M-1 Abrams tanks. Here, about an hour’s drive north of Reno, Nevada, the tanks have been collecting dust in the hot California desert because of a tiff between the Army and Congress.

The U.S. has more than enough combat tanks in the field to meet the nation’s defense needs – so there’s no sense in making repairs to these now, the Army’s chief of staff Gen. Raymond T. Odierno told Congress earlier this year.

If the Pentagon holds off repairing, refurbishing or making new tanks for three years until new technologies are developed, the Army says it can save taxpayers as much as $3 billion.

That may seem like a lot of money, but it’s a tiny sacrifice for a Defense Department that will cut $500 billion from its budget over the next decade and may be forced to cut a further $500 billion if a deficit cutting deal is not reached by Congress.

Why is this a big deal? For one, the U.S. hasn’t stopped producing tanks since before World War II, according to lawmakers.

Plus, from its point of view the Army would prefer to decide what it needs and doesn’t need to keep America strong while making tough economic cuts elsewhere.

“When a relatively conservative institution like the U.S. military, which doesn’t like to take risks because risks get people killed, says it has enough tanks, I think generally civilians should be inclined to believe them,” said Travis Sharp a fellow at the defense think tank, New American Security.

But guess which group of civilians isn’t inclined to agree with the generals on this point?

Congress.

To be exact, 173 House members – Democrats and Republicans – sent a letter April 20 to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, urging him to continue supporting their decision to produce more tanks.

That’s right. Lawmakers who frequently and loudly proclaim that presidents should listen to generals when it comes to battlefield decisions are refusing to take its own advice.

If the U.S. pauses tank production and refurbishment it will hurt the nation’s industrial economy, lawmakers say.

“The combat vehicle industrial base is a unique asset that consists of hundreds of public and private facilities across the United States,” the letter said. The outlook for selling Abrams tanks to other nations appears “stronger than prior years,” the letter said. But those sales would be “inadequate to sustain the industrial base and in some cases uncertain. In light of this, modest and continued Abrams production for the Army is necessary to protect the industrial base.”

Lima, Ohio, is a long way from this dusty tank parking lot. The tiny town in the eastern part of the Buckeye State is where defense manufacturing heavyweight General Dynamics makes these 60-plus-ton behemoths.

The tanks create 16,000 jobs and involve 882 suppliers, says Kendell Pease, the company’s vice-president of government relations and communications. That job figure includes ancillary positions like gas station workers who fill up employees’ cars coming and going to the plant.

Many of the suppliers for tank manufacturing are scattered around the country so the issue of stopping production or refurbishment becomes a parochial one: congressional representatives don’t want to kill any jobs in their districts, especially as the economy struggles during an election year.

“General Dynamics is not the industrial base,” Pease said. “It is small vendors.”

But General Dynamics certainly has a stake in the battle of the tanks and is making sure its investment is protected, according to research done by The Center for Public Integrity, a journalism watchdog group.

What its reporters found was General Dynamics campaign contributions given to lawmakers at key times, such as around congressional hearings, on whether or not to build more tanks.

“We aren’t saying there’s vote buying” said Aaron Metha, one of the report’s authors. “We are saying it’s true in pretty much all aspects of politics – but especially the defense industry. It’s almost impossible to separate out the money that is going into elections and the special interests. And what we found was the direct spike in the giving around certain important dates that were tied to votes.”

Pease said General Dynamics is bipartisan in its giving and there is nothing suspicious in the timing of its donations to members of the House and Senate. The giving is tied to when fundraisers are held in Washington – which is also when Congress is in session, he said.

Lawmakers that CNN interviewed denied that donations influenced their decisions to keep the tanks rolling.

Rep. Buck McKeon, a Republican from California and chairman of the House armed services committee, said he didn’t know General Dynamics had given him $56,000 in campaign contributions since 2009 until CNN asked him about it.

“You know, the Army has a job to do and we have a job to do,” McKeon said. “And they have tough choices because they’ve been having their budget cut.”

McKeon said he’s thinking about the long range view. “… If someone could guarantee us that we’ll never need tanks in the future, that would be good. I don’t see that guarantee.”

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iHeartRadio Screws Greenday, Reduces Play Time From 20 To 1 Minutes To Make More Time For Savage Black Beast Usher

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – With nearly a quarter of a century of music under their belts they certainly have plenty of material.

So perhaps it is understandable why Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong went on a foul-mouthed tirade after his band’s playing time was cut to make way for Usher at the iHeartRadio festival in Las Vegas.

The 40-year-old Dookie star flew off the handle when he discovered 20 minutes were getting shaved off their set to make room for more mainstream acts.

It all kicked off when he noticed that producers had run down his time to one minute.

The pint-sized punk stopped performing mid-song, pointed out the clock to the audience, and then started ranting and swearing uncontrollably.

He said: ‘You’re going to give me one minute? One f***ing minute? I’ve been around since f***ing ninteen eighty f***ing eight and you’re going to give me one f***ing minute?

‘I’m not f***ing Justin Bieber, you motherf***ers.’

Ironically, Billie was actually in error, as the band he founded actually started playing in 1987.

He said the word f*** more than 20 times in the single minute he had left, before organisers turned his microphone off.

But the angry star was not finished as he decided to smash up his guitar onstage.

As the hot-tempered entertainer walked off, he had some final words to say, telling fans, ‘We’ll be back.’

Not everyone was happy at his behaviour though, with one fan saying on YouTube: ‘I think he deserves to be mad, but why the hell did he was cursing like that?

‘I’m a big Green Day fan, but I think he didn’t have to do all this drama ON the stage because that was so unprofessional, and also that Bieber comment was really unnecessary.

‘And also that “f***ing” “f***” “f***/ers” words every 2 seconds…’

After becoming an underground success, Green Day’s major label debut Dookie in 1994 helped revive interest in the flailing genre.

It ended up selling more than 10 million copies in the US alone.

They have continued to be a successful touring and recording unit, with their last album 21st Century Breakdown being their biggest chart success to date.

It reached number one in the US, UK and Europe, and won a Grammy award for best rock album.

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Las Vegas Nevada Police Officer Chases Car With Dead Driver

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – A Las Vegas police officer was in his patrol car in the central valley late Sunday afternoon when a Nissan Maxima that appeared to be steering itself ran through a red light.

It was no ordinary traffic offense, Homicide Lt. Ray Steiber said.

The officer was startled as the Maxima continued south on Martin Luther King Boulevard, near Lake Mead Boulevard, because there didn’t appear to be anyone in the driver’s seat.

Steiber said the officer tailed the Maxima with his patrol vehicle as the Maxima continued south. Then the Maxima jumped a median and crossed the northbound lanes into a landscape area near a church.

But the chase wasn’t over. The Maxima veered back onto Martin Luther King south in the northbound lanes, at which point it struck another vehicle. The collision occurred near Jimmy Avenue and Martin Luther King.

When the Maxima came to a stop, the officer peered inside and saw what the problem was: A man who was shot multiple times was slouched in the driver’s seat.

The unidentified man, who appeared to be in his late 20s or early 30s, was pronounced dead at the scene. No one else was injured in the crash.

The maroon Maxima had bullet holes in its driver’s side, Steiber said.

He added the man who was shot must have had his foot on the accelerator, and the haphazard chase lasted between 10 and 15 seconds after the Maxima drove through the intersection.

The incident occurred about 6:09 p.m.

Steiber said late Sunday night police had no witnesses, and no motive.

“We want to know what happened,” Steiber said. “We don’t know how long he had been unconscious. We don’t know how long prior to this coming to an end had he been shot.”

Steiber said police received 911 calls of gunshots just before the officer spotted the Maxima. The calls were made from north of the Martin Luther King, Lake Mead intersection.

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Energy Company Closes Manufacturing Plant – 20 Million Taxpayer Dollars Down The Drain

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – The Amonix solar manufacturing plant in North Las Vegas, subsidized by more than $20 million in federal tax credits and grants, has closed its 214,000-square-foot facility about a year after it opened.

Officials at Amonix headquarters in Seal Beach, Calif., have not responded to repeated calls for comment this week, but the company began selling equipment, from automated tooling systems to robotic welding cells, in an online auction Wednesday.

A designer and manufacturer of concentrated photovoltaic solar power systems, Amonix received $6 million in federal tax credits for the North Las Vegas plant and a $15.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy in 2007 for research and development.

Rene Kenerly, a former material and supply manager at Amonix, said the plant has been idle since May 1, when he was laid off. At its peak, the plant had about 700 employees working three shifts a day to produce solar panels for a utility in Amarosa, Colo., he said.

“I don’t think they had a lot of training,” Kenerly said. “There were a lot of quality issues. A lot of stuff was coming back because it had some functionality issues.”

The Amonix plant was highly touted by political leaders and economic development officials when it opened in May 2011. Company executives said they would employ as many as 300 assembly line workers paid $12 to $14 an hour, plus benefits.

Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and Gov. Brian Sandoval were among the political leaders who lauded the company when it announced it would start making solar panels in the Golden Triangle Industrial Park. Reid in particular has pushed for solar energy research and development in Nevada, drawing parallels between the value of Nevada sunshine and Saudi Arabian oil.

“Last year, Amonix CEO Brian Robert­son was tragically killed in a plane crash and unfortunately the company was unable to recover from this difficult time,” Reid said Wednesday in an email statement. “Some people will be tempted to use today’s unfortunate news for political gain. But I am hopeful that the bipartisan support for this project and the public-private partnership that helped make this and many other projects possible will not be degraded by dirty energy supporters for their own profit or political gain. The clean energy sector is too important to Nevada’s future, and I hope that those that publicly acknowledge this will continue to strengthen the bipartisan support for renewable energy programs and incentives that exists in Nevada.”

Department of Energy press secretary Jen Stutsman noted that the project had bipartisan support from elected officials, including Republicans Sandoval and North Las Vegas Mayor Shari Buck.

Amonix was selected for a grant under the Bush administration’s Department of Energy in 2007 and eventually received a total of $15.6 million under the grant, she said.

“The global solar industry is facing significant challenges that are impacting solar manufacturers worldwide,” Stutsman said Wednesday from Washing­ton. “Amonix, an innovative solar startup company with strong backing from Republicans as well as Democrats, received a tax credit to expand its American manufacturing operations and help ensure the United States continues to compete for the manufacturing jobs of the future. While today’s news is disappointing, the United States simply can’t afford to cede America’s role in the growing, highly competitive solar energy industry.”

The company announced 200 layoffs in January, one month after Robertson was killed in a plane crash in Penn­sylvania, but a representative at the time said the plant was “retooling to redeploy our next generation utility-scale CPV (concentrated photovoltaic) solar power system” and would “ramp back up based on the manufacturing build plan in second half of 2012.”

Mary-Sarah Kinner, press secretary for Gov. Sandoval, also noted Robertson’s death.

“After the tragic loss of their CEO late last year, today’s news is a sad ending for Amonix,” Kinner said. “The governor supported a company which was expanding to Nevada and creating jobs in a targeted economic development sector, which is a priority for him.”

Nevada’s Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation’s rapid response team is doing all it can to assist displaced workers in finding new employment, she said.

North Las Vegas Mayor Buck and city economic development officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Founded in 1989, Amonix is headquartered in Seal Beach with additional facilities in Torrance, Calif., and North Las Vegas.

The company had a five-year lease on the North Las Vegas site with Operating Engineers. Donna Alderson, a CB Richard Ellis broker in charge of leasing the building, said she was told the facility would be vacated by the end of July and go on the market for lease at about 30 cents per square foot.

The North Las Vegas plant was a joint venture with Singapore’s Flextronics Industrial. Amonix founder and chairman Vahan Garboushian had estimated capital investment of $15 million in the plant, including equipment, construction and tenant improvements.

Kenerly, the former Amonix manager, said many investors pulled back after Robertson’s death and the company was about $100 million in debt, including $34 million owed to Flextronics.

Bombard Electric, the Las Vegas contractor that did the electrical work, has placed a lien on the property used for the solar panels, he said.

Mitchell “Moe” Truman, president of Pan Western, a transportation service in North Las Vegas, said his company is owed about $60,000 for shipping Amonix products to and from Colorado.

“I’ll never see that money,” Truman said. “I’d like to know how they burned through that money.”

POLITICAL FALLOUT

In July 2010, President Barack Obama talked up the Amonix plant during a Nevada visit to support Reid’s re-election, saying tax credits for the plant provided by federal economic stimulus efforts had already made an “extraordinary impact.”

“Now, the only problem we have is these credits were working so well, there aren’t enough tax credits to go around,” Obama said in a speech at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

“There are more worthy projects than there are tax credits. When we announced the program last year, it was such a success we received 500 applications requesting over $8 billion in tax credits, but we only had $2.3 billion to invest. In other words, we had almost four times as many worthy requests as we had tax credits.”

The plant’s closure quickly became a political football in Nevada’s U.S. Senate race.

“Congresswoman Berkley, when you voted for the trillion dollar stimulus, you promised it would create 34,000 jobs in Nevada,” wrote Chandler Smith, spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, the incumbent Republican Berkley is challenging. “Nevada lost jobs. Congresswoman Berkley, you pushed $6 million in funding to a company that has created zero long-term jobs for Nevada. It’s time for you to admit the stimulus – and your policies – aren’t working.”

Berkley’s communications director, Xochitl Hinojosa, responded: “Shame on Senator Dean Heller. While Shelley Berkley and Republican Governor Brian Sandoval are working to make Nevada the clean energy jobs capital of America, Senator Heller is cheering the fact that hundreds of Nevadans have just lost their jobs because he thinks it will help his political campaign. However, Heller’s rooting for failure should come as no surprise to Nevada’s middle class, given his track record protecting tax breaks for corporations that ship American jobs overseas and defending China’s unfair trade policies that are cheating Nevada workers out of thousands of good-paying jobs.”

Amonix isn’t the only solar company to go under after receiving an infusion of federal capital.

California-based Solyndra filed for bankruptcy last year after receiving $535 million in federal loan guarantees from the Obama administration.

Colorado-based Abound Solar, which received a $70 million loan guaranteed by the Energy Department, filed for bankruptcy in June, succumbing to intense competition from China that has sharply driven down the cost of solar panels, chairman Thomas Tiller said in a Reuters news article.

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Las Vegas Nevada Bar Closing After 20 Years And 15 People Will Lose Jobs Due To Water Bill – Used Only $60 In Water, But Bill Is $540 With Surcharges

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – A longtime Las Vegas bar is closing down, and owners say a new surcharge on their water bill is the reason. Larry’s Hideaway has been open for 20 years, but all that history is going down the drain.

The tune at Larry’s Hideaway this week is a sad one. Regular patrons like Jamie Cole hate to hear this saloon is shutting its doors for good.

“I’m going to cry,” Cole said. “It’s not right. This place has been here forever.”

Larry’s Hideaway president Brent Howard says the cost of operating the business increased over the years. A new water bill fee sealed the bar’s fate.

“I think it’s unfair to go after businesses,” he said. “The bill was five hundred and forty dollars for the total bill. The water usage on the bill was sixty dollars.”

Southern Nevada Water Authority officials say the new surcharge will help cover infrastructure costs. Because Larry’s Hideaway has a big water line to feed its sprinklers, the bar’s tab got expensive.

“We have to do something,” said Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak, who also sits on the Southern Nevada Water Authority Board of Directors. “It was presented that it was going to be a modest charge to everybody. This is far from a modest charge.”

After 20 years, Larry’s Hideaway will hold its last call. Sisolak says something must be done so this surcharge doesn’t drown out anyone else.

“I think we have to. There’s no doubt in my mind. You’re going to have businesses, more businesses, going out of business,” he said.

This Friday, loyal patrons will have one last toast, say their goodbyes and mark the end of an era at this country bar.

“I envision this place is going to be boarded up for a long time. I really don’t know what’s going to happen,” Howard said.

A few weeks ago, 15 people worked at Larry’s Hideaway. That number is down to eight, and most will be out of a job.

Friday night will be the last night Larry’s Hideaway will be open, and then the taps will be shut off – perhaps forever.

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Broke: Las Vegas Nevada Police Department Faces $68 Million Budget Shortfall – Costs $525 MILLION A Year To Run Department

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA — The Metropolitan Police Department’s estimated $68 million budget shortfall next year has Sheriff Doug Gillespie preparing for a worse case scenario. He must find the money by April or be forced to make drastic cuts, including patrol officer positions, which are already at a bare minimum.

Metro estimates it will cost about $525 million to run the department next year. They have already scrapped two police academies, closed a substation and cut more than 230 positions in the last two years.

Gillespie detailed to the police commission how serious the situation is, calling on help from the City of Las Vegas and Clark County. In 60-days, he wants to know how much the department will get from each entity, and he expects a financial tug of war.

“The city and the county have had to reduce service levels as well, eliminate positions as well, so none of these decisions are going to be easy,” he said.

The county says it has no more to give and that deeper cuts are inevitable. Uniformed officer numbers are already near minimum safety levels.

“You can’t reduce their resources and numbers below acceptable levels,” said Gillespie.

Another big reason Metro is in this bind is Clark County’s declining property taxes, which have seen a 36 percent drop accounting for nearly $61 million that normally would have been in the police budget. The sheriff plans to ask the Nevada legislature to re-allocate $54 million earmarked to hire new cops to help fill the budget.

One of the more surprising moments of the meeting was a $350 donation that got a standing ovation. Paul Jones collected soda cans and donated the money to the department.

“I heard bad things were going to happen. I wanted to help save people’s jobs and help donate money,” he said.

What’s inside his piggy bank may not be much, but Gillespie says the gesture gives him goose bumps. With the department facing one of the toughest financial binds since the 1980’s, Jones is just happy he can give some relief.

“Thank you for keeping the bad guys off the streets,” he said.

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Broke: North Las Vegas Nevada Declares Fake “Disaster” In Order To Suspend Union Contracts And Avoid Scheduled Raises

NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – There are no signs of rioters, wind-damaged homes or flooding. The brand new City Hall features gleaming marble floors and the public recreation centers offer Zumba, karate and Pilates classes.

Despite all of its suburban trimmings, North Las Vegas is officially a disaster area.

After five years of declining property taxes, massive layoffs and questionable spending, leaders of the blue-collar, family-oriented city outside Las Vegas declared a state of emergency, invoking a rarely used state law crafted for unforeseen disasters.

No matter that the statute, which allows municipalities to suspend union contracts and avoid paying scheduled salary increases, doesn’t actually include fiscal emergencies among the list of potential disasters.

“It says, in case of ’emergency such as.’ You can’t list how many different types of emergencies there are in the world,” City Council member Wade Wagner said of the move, which will save the city $9 million.

Reno Nevada Gazette-Journal Photojournalist Attacked On The Job By Crazed Washoe County Deputy Sheriffs – Accused Him Of Impersonating A Firefighter For Wearing Protective Clothing That Fire Officials Recommend In Annual Media Training

SUN VALLEY, NEVADA – A 60-year-old Reno Gazette-Journal photojournalist was pushed to the ground, handcuffed and suffered minor injuries Monday after sheriff’s deputies alleged he obstructed and resisted them while trying to take photographs of a destructive fire in Sun Valley.

About 5:42 p.m. Monday, Washoe County Sheriff’s Office deputies cited Tim Dunn for obstruction and resisting.

Dunn, the newspaper’s photo director and a 21-year employee there, was taking photos of a fire that broke out near Flora Way and East Fourth Avenue. The fire ultimately destroyed two homes and multiple structures.

Dunn said he was told to leave the area and was directed to another location farther from the scene. He said he was then taken to the ground by two deputies – one who shoved his foot on Dunn’s back and the other who pushed his face in the gravel. Dunn’s cheek has a large scrape on it.

Dunn said the deputies accused him of trying to impersonate a firefighter because he was wearing yellow protective fire gear, a helmet and goggles. However, annual wildfire training for media conducted by fire officials recommends such fire gear.

“I kept thinking this was not really happening,” Dunn said.

Barry Smith, executive director of the Nevada Press Association, called it “absolutely preposterous” that Dunn could have been mistaken for a firefighter, and said Dunn’s gear is called for in the 20-page Sierra Front Media Fire Guide published by an interagency coalition that includes the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Nevada Division of Forestry and others.

“Please keep in mind appropriate attire when you are covering fire operations. … We cannot guarantee that the supply unit will have sizes of fire clothing that will fit you. It is always best to come to a wildfire fully equipped,” according to the guide. It also states, “Remember that the decision to assume risk remains with the journalist.”

“The whole idea of ‘move or you’re going to be arrested’ is way outside that policy,” Smith said.

Sheriff’s office spokesman Deputy Armando Avina said the deputies used their discretion and did not arrest Dunn. Avina said because reports in the case have not been completed, he could not comment on the incident.

Beryl Love, Gazette-Journal executive editor, said there have been several instances during the past year in which reporters and photographers were not given access to scenes where they had a right to be. But Love said Monday’s incident goes above and beyond press access.

“The brutal nature in which Tim, a veteran photographer with more than 20 years experience, was treated by sheriff’s deputies is beyond comprehension,” Love said in a statement. “Their use of excessive force on a fellow professional who also has an important job to do is shocking. His rights were clearly violated.”

Love said the newspaper is preparing a formal administrative complaint and is advising Dunn on possible civil actions related to his injuries.

Smith said he doesn’t remember any such incident in the past 20 years.

“There are occasionally disagreements over where people should be and how much access there is, but I’ve never heard of a deputy actually beating up a photographer,” he told the Associated Press. “I’m outraged.”

Dunn said he was asked by a man wearing a T-shirt, later identified as Capt. John Spencer, who he was with. After Dunn said he responded that he was with the Gazette-Journal, he said Spencer told him to go down the hill where other media had been directed.

Dunn said that after he complained the area was too far away for him to take photos, Spencer escorted him down the hill and said Dunn did not have any identification.

After Dunn said he told Spencer he wasn’t asked to show identification, their conversation became heated. Soon, Dunn said, the two deputies arrived and handcuffed him after taking him to the ground.

“I was proceeding out of the area and was irritated they wouldn’t let me do my job, but I was doing what they told me,” Dunn said. “… I don’t know why they felt they had to take me down. I’m a 60-year-old guy carrying camera equipment.”

Dunn said he always has respected law enforcement and the job they do. He said Monday’s incident disappointed him.

“My rights were violated, and the force they used was not necessary,” he said.

Smith said he spent much of Tuesday researching relevant state statutes, rules and regulations. He said fire officials and law officers “clearly do not have the authority to order the media around at any kind of an emergency site.” He said obvious exceptions include “if somebody is obstructing the firefighters from getting to the scene or doing their job, or there is some imminent danger the reporter or photographer is not aware of — and in that case, they should be advising them.”

“Nevada journalists are trained how to respond to wildfires,” said Smith, who intends to support the newspaper in its action. “It sounds to me like the fire officials and deputies need to be trained on how to respond to the media.”

An Aug. 1 court date is scheduled in Sparks Justice Court.

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Pedophile Veteran Las Vegas Nevada Police Officer Garrett Vandereecken Arrested And Charged With Lewdness With A Child

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – A Las Vegas Metro police officer was arrested on Tuesday afternoon and charged with lewdness with a minor under 14.

Police said Garrett Vandereecken voluntarily surrendered and was booked at the Clark County Detention Center.

The details surrounding Vandereecken’s alleged crime were not immediately released. Detectives from Metro’s Juvenile Sexual Abuse Detail made the arrest.

Vandereecken, 43, has been a patrol officer with Metro for the past four years.

“He has been relieved of duty without pay pending the outcome of both the criminal charges and the investigation, both of which remain ongoing,” a Metro spokesperson said in a release.

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General Services Employees Rewarded For Pissing Away Tax Dollars On Lavish Las Vegas Conference

WASHINGTON, DC – Awarding bonuses for wasting taxpayer dollars?

That appears to be incentive offered by the federal agency under fire for spending lavishly on a 2010 conference held near Las Vegas. The latest details from an inspector general report on the conference reveal 50 employees were given cash awards of $500 and $1,000 for their work arranging the now-infamous conference.

“It would also appear that a number of GSA bureaucrats who helped arrange the Las Vegas junket were handed cash bonuses for their work in wasting the better part of a million dollars,” Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., said Tuesday.

Rep. Mica also revealed Tuesday that one high-ranking official spent an extra night in Vegas at taxpayer expense, even though the conference was already over.

Calling the new revelation the “icing on the cake,” Mica said the official paid only $93 for a fourth night at the Vegas suite, which costs more than $1,000 a night.

The rest of the cost of the room “was apparently charged to the taxpayer” he said in a statement.

Rep. Jeff Denham, chairman of a subcommittee on economic development, public buildings and emergency management, said adding “personal vacation stays in Vegas” to the spending by GSA on the Las Vegas conference was “outrageous.”

In light of the the scandal in the General Services Administration over the more than $800,000 spent on the 2010 event, the agency has made a shrewd decision about where to hold its next conference: not Vegas.

The GSA, the federal equivalent of the government’s landlord, had been preparing to return to the Las Vegas area, but the Washington Post reported that the upcoming conference, scheduled for April 25 at a Vegas hotel, has been cancelled.

Several agency employees, including its chief, already have lost their jobs over an inspector general’s report on the 2010 conference.

Music videos featured at that conference have more or less gone viral by this point, showing agency employees laughing it up while making light of the agency’s spending and internal investigations.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been releasing the videos as it launches an investigation into GSA spending following the inspector general’s report. The committee announced late Monday that it has scheduled a hearing for April 16, where Martha Johnson — until recently the head of GSA — has been invited to testify, along with the inspector general.

An agency spokesman told the Post that the acting administrator has promised greater scrutiny of any conferences “that involve travel or substantial expenditures of public funds.”

The conference that had been scheduled for later this month was focused on environmentally friendly products and services and was intended to bring together GSA employees and contractors.

The Obama administration has not attempted to defend the 2010 conference. Top Obama officials have condemned the expenses and pledged to implement protections to clamp down on wasteful spending.

The administration, though, has pointed to rising costs under the George W. Bush administration to suggest that the $820,000 Vegas conference could have been avoided — if the Bush-era GSA had acted.

According to figures obtained by Fox News, the budget for the so-called Western Regions Conference rose from $93,000 in 2004 to $323,855 in 2006. It then jumped to $655,025 in 2008.

But Lurita Doan, who headed the agency under Bush until her resignation in 2008, told Fox News that President Obama’s team is trying to “divert attention” from its own scandal.

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9 Month Jail Sentenced Delayed Again – Former Las Vegas Nevada Drug Prosecutor David Schubert Pled Guilty After Buying Cocaine

A nine-month jail sentence for a former drug prosecutor who pleaded guilty to buying $40 worth of cocaine again has been delayed, this time by Nevada’s high court.

The Supreme Court on Friday said that because the case is under appeal, David Schubert does not have to report to the county jail Monday to start serving his sentence, which was handed down by a district judge in February.

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has asked the state attorney general’s office to respond to the sentencing appeal made by Bill Terry, Schubert’s lawyer.

Terry has said Judge Carolyn Ellsworth showed bias against his client at a Feb. 27 sentencing hearing.

At the hearing, Terry said, Ellsworth violated procedure by adjudicating Schubert guilty before arguments by the defense and the prosecution. And Ellsworth’s court marshal handcuffed him before the judge announced she was sentencing him to nine months in jail for his buying $40 of rock cocaine last year.

Last week Chief Judge Jennifer Togliatti denied Schubert’s motion to have the sentence tossed and the case moved to another judge.

The Supreme Court has asked for a response to Terry’s appeal from the state attorney general’s office, which prosecuted the case. As part of a deal with prosecutors, Schubert pleaded guilty to a felony charge of cocaine possession, which under state law results in mandatory probation.

At the sentencing hearing, Ellsworth called the deal “offensive” and sentenced Schubert to three years of probation, which included nine months in the county jail. State law allows a judge to order a defendant to serve a year of probation in jail.

In contrast, two high-profile cocaine prosecutions handled by Schubert resulted in probation and no jail time. At the time of their arrests, celebrity Paris Hilton and singer Bruno Mars both had more cocaine in their possession than the former prosecutor.

Las Vegas police arrested the 10-year veteran prosecutor in March 2011 after they watched a man get out of Schubert’s car, go into an apartment complex and return. Officers found Schubert with a minute amount of rock cocaine and confiscated a 9 mm handgun from his car.

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Retired El Dorado County Nevada Deputy Sheriff Sgt. Donald Atkinson Arrested, Charged With Grand Theft, Perjury, And Forgery After Embezzling Over $300,000 While Head Of Deputies Association

RENO, NEVADA – A retired El Dorado County Sheriff’s sergeant is behind bars today, charged with embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from a deputies association. Donald Atkinson was arrested Thursday on 44 felony charges.

He’s accused of embezzling more than $300,000 dollars from the El Dorado County Deputy Sheriff’s Association, of which he was president. Atkinson faces grand theft, perjury, and forgery charges.

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Henderson Nevada Police Officers Caught On Video Brutally Beating Unresisting Man In A Diabetic Shock – Attackers Names Hidden From The Public

HENDERSON, NEVADA – Adam Greene is on his stomach as a pack of police officers pile on him, driving their knees into his back and wrenching his arms and legs. One officer knees him in the ribs; another kicks him in the face.

“Stop resisting,” officers on the video yell, but Greene, his face pushed into the pavement, hasn’t resisted. He doesn’t even move — maybe can’t move — because he’s gone into diabetic shock caused by low blood sugar.

The video, recorded more than a year ago by a police car dashboard camera, was released Tuesday by Greene’s lawyers. The same night, the Henderson City Council approved a settlement of $158,500 for Greene. His wife received $99,000 from Henderson, which is just under the minimum amount that requires council approval.

Nevada Highway Patrol troopers also participated in the traffic stop but do not appear to kick or knee Greene on the video. The state has agreed to pay $35,000 to Greene for a total of $292,500 between the two agencies.

It was a Highway Patrol vehicle camera that captured the incident.

CAUGHT ON TAPE

A Highway Patrol trooper enters the scene first, gun drawn, and kicks the driver’s window of Greene’s four-door sedan. After several moments, the trooper opens the door.

The trooper, his gun still raised, then gives Greene conflicting commands. He first tells him not to move, then tells him to come forward.

A second trooper quickly cuffs Greene’s wrist and pulls him from the car, which rolls forward until an officer stops it.

Greene flops to the ground, clearly dazed as five officers rush him. A sixth officer, with Henderson police, enters the frame late and delivers five well-placed kicks to Greene’s face.

“Stop resisting mother (expletive)!” one officer yells.

Greene doesn’t scream until a second Henderson officer knees him in the midsection — and then does it three more times. Greene was later treated for fractured ribs.

Police suspected Greene was intoxicated as he weaved among lanes about 4 a.m. on Oct. 29, 2010, and finally stopped his car near Lake Mead Parkway and Boulder Highway in Henderson.

But that wasn’t the case, which they soon discovered after they searched Greene.

“Call in medical,” one officer says in the video. “We found some insulin in his pocket. … He’s semiconscious.”

“Let’s get medical out here. He’s a diabetic, he’s probably in shock,” the officer later tells dispatch.

Greene’s lawsuit said officers then forced him to stand by a patrol car in handcuffs and blow into a Breathalyzer, despite being injured. Paramedics later arrived and treated him for low blood sugar.

Greene was released without a citation, and officers apologized to him for “beating him up,” the lawsuit said.

He immediately went to a hospital, where he was treated for the broken ribs and the bruises to his hands, neck, face and scalp, the lawsuit said.

One of the harsher moments in the video comes near the end of the clip, when one officer can be heard laughing loudly.

One officer notes that Greene “was not a small guy.” An officer laughs and says, “I couldn’t take him by myself.”

OFFICERS NOT IDENTIFIED

None of the officers was named in the lawsuit, and authorities have not released their names.

Henderson police said a sergeant involved was disciplined. The sergeant remains employed with the department.

Greene’s lawyers were planning to hold a news conference today about the incident.

Greene’s case, while shocking, is not unique.

Alan Yatvin, a legal advocate for the American Diabetes Association and a Philadelphia attorney, said police across the country frequently mistake low blood sugar — called hypoglycemia when blood sugar is exceptionally low — for intoxication in people with diabetes.

A Web search on the issue returns dozens of video clips and stories similar to Greene’s.

Symptoms of hypoglycemia include shakiness, dizziness, hunger, pale skin, moodiness, aggressive behavior, loss of consciousness and even seizures.

“You need police to be trained in what to look for,” Yatvin said. “The problem is, there’s no authority over all police departments. Every department has its own procedures, and states have different rules and training regimens.”

Henderson police said in a statement that the department’s use-of-force methods were modified after the Greene incident. The statement noted a 30 percent reduction in use-of-force incidents from 2010 to 2011. The specific policy changes were not detailed.

William Sousa, a criminal justice professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said training for crisis issues is not consistent through departments. Some departments train every officer, and some departments train just a few.

And it is unknown how effective crisis training is, Sousa said.

“Anecdotal evidence is that even officers trained for this will come upon situations they have to diagnose quickly, and act quickly, and those result in cases where you have something (like Greene’s case),” he said.

The American Diabetes Association recommends that people with diabetes wear a bracelet indicating their condition, but “police still have to look,” Yatvin said.

It is unknown whether Greene was wearing a medical bracelet, but it wasn’t mentioned in the lawsuit.

Yatvin, who specializes in police misconduct cases, added that it is “very troubling” for the average citizen to think police could arrest or assault them because of a medical condition.

“I have a hard time imagining a scenario where it’s necessary to kick an unarmed man and break his ribs,” he said.

The scenario likely would not have been seen at all had the Highway Patrol camera not been rolling.

At the time of the incident, Henderson police did not have dashboard cameras. Those were added to Henderson police vehicles in June, more than eight months after the incident with Greene.

Such an event would not have been captured on video in Las Vegas because the Metropolitan Police Department doesn’t have cameras in cars.

Sousa said the trend with agencies has been moving toward dashboard cameras.

“It works both ways,” he said. “There’s usually resistance from officers at first, but as years go by it may become no big deal, because you get an objective recording that often helps the officers.”

This wasn’t the first high-profile incident involving a medical episode in Clark County. In both cases, the Highway Patrol was involved.

Las Vegas doctor Ryan Rich, 33, died in January 2008 after trooper Loren Lazoff used a Taser on him five times.

Rich’s vehicle had crashed into two vehicles and then the center median on Interstate 15.

Lazoff said Rich appeared intoxicated, dazed and was combative, but an autopsy later revealed he only had seizure medication in his system. Rich had been diagnosed with the seizure disorder shortly before he died.

The Clark County Coroner’s inquest jury ruled the death excusable.

Rich’s family sued Taser International last year. The Highway Patrol was not named in the lawsuit.

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TSA Now Targeting Cupcakes – Frosting Now A “Security Risk”

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS — A Peabody woman says a cupcake she tried to take on a flight with her sparked a potential security threat this week.

Rebecca Hains says she was going through security at the airport in Las Vegas when a TSA agent pulled her aside and said the cupcake frosting was “gel-like” enough to constitute a security risk.

She said she was able to pass through Logan International Airport security with two cupcakes, but she was stopped on the way back when she tried to return with one of them.

“In general, cakes and pies are allowed in carry on luggage,” said TSA spokesperson James Fotenos, adding they were looking into why this cupcake was confiscated.

Hains said she had received the cupcakes as a gift and after eating one on the trip out west, decided to save the other for the flight back.

She contacted the cupcake company, Wicked Good Cupcakes of Cohasset, which said it will ship her a new batch free of charge.

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Nevada Drivers License Clerk Pleads Guilty After Selling 214 Licenses To Illegal Immigrants

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – A former Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles clerk has pleaded guilty to a federal bribery charge for accepting thousands of dollars to provide driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.

The 28-year-old Nancy Brown of Las Vegas entered the plea Tuesday to one count of federal program bribery. She faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine at sentencing March 6.

Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s office in Nevada say Brown was a front-line clerk at the DMV office on Sahara Avenue in Las Vegas.

Authorities say she used third parties to recruit customers who didn’t have identifying documents, and typically charged $1,500 to $3,000 for each license. A plea agreement says she issued about 214 licenses illegally between February 2010 and April 2011.

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Elko Area Regional Airport Nevada TSA Agent David Ralph Anderson Arrested, Charged With Molesting Girl Younger Than 14 Seven To Ten Times In Past Year

SPRING CREEK, NEVADA – A city officer arrested a Spring Creek man Wednesday morning at the Elko Area Regional Airport, where he works for the Transportation Security Administration, on a warrant charging six counts of lewdness with a child.

The Elko County Sheriff’s Office was notified in July of possible sexual contact between David Ralph Anderson, 61, and a girl younger than 14.

According to Elko Justice Court records, the victim told investigators that on seven to 10 occasions between 2010 and this year, Anderson allegedly taught the victim about various sexual acts and had sexual contact in the form of touching each other’s genitals.

Investigators reported Anderson also told the girl to sleep in his bed and taught her to say various vulgar words associated with body parts and sexual activities.

In addition, the girl stated he would rub lotion all over her body, placed his hand up her shirt to touch her breasts, had her watch pornographic films with him, encouraged her to consume alcohol and would French kiss her.

Deputy District Attorney Tyler Ingram submitted a warrant request to Elko Justice of the Peace Al Kacin on Aug. 23, which was granted along with an objection to any reduction of bail.

Anderson, who is a TSA employee according to Elko County Jail records, is being held on $250,000 bail.

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Las Vegas Nevada Police Put Innocent Man In Prison For 4 Years After DNA Mistake – Faced Life In Prison

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – The Las Vegas Police Department is saying “oops” after Sin City coppers put a man in prison for four years for a crime he didn’t commit.

Authorities say a DNA error put Dwayne Jackson on the scene of a kidnapping and robbery case, though now they know that that wasn’t the truth. He was arrested in 2001 and served four years. Now he stands to receive payment for their screw-up.

“We acknowledged that we made a mistake,” Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie said.

That mistake was caught back in November when officials at a national DNA database noticed that the DNA linking Jackson to the scene actually belonged to his cousin, Howard Grissom.

Terry Cook, a veteran forensics scientists, is taking the blame for costing Jackson four years of his freedom. The man stood to receive life in prison on a kidnapping conviction but ended up serving only four after he was convinced to announce his guilt in a plea deal. He was released back in 2006.

Grissom, in the meantime, is already serving 41 years for manslaughter, so prosecutors don’t have plans to charge him for the 10-year-old case. They might prosecute some others though, as authorities are reviewing hundreds of cases that Cook also handled while working at the Combined DNA Index System lab.

While Jackson was slaving behind bars for years, Cook is now sitting pretty with paid leave while investigators look into this and other incidents.

Jackson doesn’t seem too concerned, however. According to his attorneys, at least. Lawyer David Chesnoff tells The Associates Press that “He’s thankful now that people can believe him when he kept telling people he was innocent. “

“Hopefully, the clearing of his name will help him find work.”

Recently an Ohio man was released after 30 years behind bar for a rape he didn’t commit once DNA testing proved he wasn’t guilty. For their error, the state wrote him a check for $2.59 million.

A Michigan man served 18 months in prison under a murder charge before he was released after a wrongful conviction. He was looking at $2 million as well.

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Henderson Nevada City Attorney Elizabeth Quillin Arrested After Drunken Wreck And Leaving The Scene – “I Am F*cked Up”

HENDERSON, NEVADA – The city attorney of Henderson told police she had been drinking “bottles” of wine and acknowledged she was intoxicated after crashing her sport utility vehicle into landscaping and a fire hydrant in the middle of the afternoon, according to a police report made public Tuesday.

Elizabeth Quillin, 51, was arrested after witnesses told police that she crashed a second time trying to drive her damaged Lexus RX400 away and then trying to walk away from the 2:50 p.m. Monday crash across Paseo Verde from the Green Valley Ranch Resort, Spa & Casino.

Henderson police said no one was hurt in the crashes, and bystanders stayed with an “unsteady” Quillin until police arrived.

“Quillin admitted to drinking ‘bottles’ of wine, and when I asked if she felt the effects, she stated, ‘Yes, I am (expletive) up,’” Henderson Police Officer Robert Honea wrote.

Quillin was arrested on driving under the influence of alcohol, leaving the scene of an accident and open container of alcohol in a vehicle charges.

She spent almost 12 hours in the Henderson city jail before being released pending a June 20 appearance in Henderson Justice Court. It wasn’t immediately clear if Quillin had a lawyer.

Because of her job, her case is expected to be handled by an outside judge and prosecutor.

Henderson spokesman Bud Cranor told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that Quillin has been placed on paid leave from the city attorney job she held since June 2009, and officials were investigating whether she was on city business, on vacation or had been scheduled to work Monday.

Witnesses told police that Quillin was making a left turn onto Carnegie Street when the SUV went off the road. A witness told police the vehicle backed up and then nearly struck her as it lurched forward and sideswiped her parked car, ran up on a curb and hit a tree.

Quillin allegedly got out and started to walk away before police arrived.

Honea reported that a 1.5-liter bottle of chardonnay, open and nearly empty, was found in Quillin’s vehicle.

Quillin’s job entails providing legal representation to the mayor and the City Council of Nevada’s second-largest city, and supervising city criminal prosecutors and civil attorneys. Her base salary is $190,000 a year.

She previously worked as chief deputy attorney general for southern Nevada under then-state Attorney General Brian Sandoval and as assistant county Clark County manager. Sandoval is now governor.

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Charges Dropped After Las Vegas Nevada Police Officer Derek Colling Beat And Falsely Arrested Videographer For Filming Police From His Driveway

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – When Mitchell Crooks checked out of the county jail last month and checked into a Las Vegas hospital, the 36-year-old videographer knew he had a fight on his hands.

His face was bloodied and bruised. His $3,500 camera had been impounded by police, and he faced criminal charges for battery on a police officer.

One month later, things have changed for Crooks.

The Clark County district attorney’s office has dropped all charges, and Crooks has retained an attorney of his own. The Metropolitan Police Department has opened an internal investigation into the Las Vegas police officer, Derek Colling, whom Crooks says falsely arrested and beat him for filming police.

And his camera — which captured the entire March 20 altercation between Crooks and Colling — has been returned.

CAUGHT ON TAPE

The words are friendly enough, but the tone is tense:

“Can I help you, sir?” Colling asks from his patrol car after parking it in front of Crooks’ driveway and shining the spotlight on Crooks.

“Nope. Just observing,” Crooks responds, fixing his camera on the officer.

Crooks had for an hour been recording the scene across the street from his home in the 1700 block of Commanche Circle, near East Desert Inn Road and South Maryland Parkway, where officers had several young burglary suspects handcuffed and sitting on the curb.

As Las Vegas crimes go, the activity was fairly boring. But Crooks wanted to try out his new camera, and he figured his neighbors would like to see the suspects’ faces.

When Colling loaded suspects into the back of his car and drove in a circle through the cul-de-sac, Crooks said he thought police were leaving. Then the officer stopped his car.

“Do you live here?” Colling asks.

“Nope,” Crooks says.

Colling steps out of his patrol car.

Crooks said he now regrets not telling the officer that he was in fact standing in his own driveway. His realizes his response seemed cheeky, but he said the officer made him nervous.

Colling walks toward Crooks, his left hand raised.

“Turn that off for me,” Colling orders.

“Why do I have to turn it off?” Crooks responds. “I’m perfectly within my legal rights to be able to do this.”

The officer repeats the command several times; each time Crooks reiterates his right to film.

“You don’t live here,” Colling says, now close to Crooks.

“I do live here!”

“You don’t live here, dude.”

“I just said I live here!”

As Crooks backs away, Colling grabs him by the shoulder and throws him down. On the ground, Crooks grabs the camera and turns it toward his face.

Colling’s leg then enters the video frame. Crooks says he believes that was the kick that broke his nose.

The video doesn’t show it, but it the camera records Crook screaming. He said that’s when Colling was punching his face.

“Shut up!” Colling yells. “Stop resisting!”

‘A WORLD OF HURT’

In his arrest report Colling wrote that Crooks grabbed his shoulders “and attempted to take me to the ground. I in turn took him to the ground.”

At Clark County Detention Center, Crooks was booked for battery on a police officer and obstruction of justice. He was released from jail the next day. On March 26, the Review-Journal reported on his case. Four days later all charges were dropped.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Christopher Laurent said he dismissed the charges because the police report was vague.

“I asked for a more definite description of the battery, because battery requires a violent touching,” Laurent said. Police never provided that information, Laurent said, so the case was dropped.

Crooks said he always believed he’d be vindicated, but after police returned his camera he knew he had proof.

“I was confident I was doing the right thing, but I was excited they (the DA’s office) weren’t wasting any time, and that somebody was smart enough to know I was acting within the law,” he said.

Crooks said the incident looks worse on tape than he remembered.

What bothered him the most, he said, was Colling’s attitude after he was placed in handcuffs.

“Why did you do that? I live here,” Crooks is heard pleading on the tape.

“You just told me you didn’t live here,” Colling says. “You live right here, in this house?”

Crooks asks for paramedics. Colling tells him to shut up and follow orders.

“If you fight again, dude… Hey, if you (expletive) fight again, dude, you’re in a world of hurt. You hear me?

“You’re not in charge here, buddy. You hear me?”

Colling mocks Crooks’ labored breathing.

“Oh yeah, buddy. Hey, when you don’t do what I ask you to do, then you’re in a world of hurt. Then you’re in a world of hurt. Aren’t ya? Huh?”

Crooks was later diagnosed with a deviated septum and a chest wall injury. Crooks believes his ribs were broken, but never got X-rays that could prove it.

LAWYERS REACT

Allen Lichtenstein, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney, reviewed Crooks’ video and said Colling was clearly in the wrong. Officers are trained to avoid escalating situations, but Colling initiated the incident and created a physical confrontation without provocation, he said.

“It raises serious questions about whether the officer used good judgment and whether he was properly trained,” Lichtenstein said. “Those questions require answers.”

Police have no expectation of privacy, and it’s perfectly legal to film officers as long as it does not interfere in their investigation, he said.

Colling also erred in claiming that Crooks was trespassing. By law, only a property owner or resident can make a trespassing complaint, Lichtenstein said.

“Even if the officer didn’t think he lived there, that doesn’t mean he didn’t have permission to be there,” Lichtenstein said. “In the video I heard, that question was never asked.”

Crooks’ attorney, David Otto, on Thursday sent police a statement from Crooks, along with a demand for $500,000 to cover Crooks’ medial care, pain and suffering.

Colling had no legitimate reason to approach Crooks that night, Otto wrote.

“Officer Colling was aggravated that a citizen should have the audacity to video tape, him — a Las Vegas Metropolitan Patrol Officer,” Otto wrote. “Officer Colling decided to use the fear and terror of his physical ability to beat Mr. Crooks into submission — to teach Mr. Crooks and, by example, all citizens and residents of the Las Vegas Valley.”

Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie declined comment, saying the internal investigation remains open. Collings remains on duty, and department officials noted that Crooks has declined several requests to be interviewed by detectives.

The suspects in Colling’s patrol car may have witnessed the event and given statements to detectives, but their names have not been released. Police said they were not arrested or booked, so their names are not public record.

Crooks said he doesn’t want to talk to detectives.

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE

Neither Colling nor Crooks are strangers to controversy.

Colling has been involved in two fatal shootings in his 5 1/2 years as a Las Vegas police officer. In 2006, he and four other officers shot Shawn Jacob Collins after the 43-year-old man pulled a gun at an east valley gas station.

In 2009, he confronted a mentally ill 15-year-old Tanner Chamberlain, who was holding a knife in front of his mother and waving it in the direction of officers. Colling shot him in the head.

Both shootings were ruled justified by Clark County coroner’s juries.

Crooks made headlines in 2002 when he videotaped two Inglewood, Calif., police officers beating a 16-year-old boy. One officer was fired and criminally charged but was not convicted after two trials ended with hung juries. The incident strained race relations in Southern California — the police officer was white, the teenager black.

Crooks first tried to sell that tape and then declined to give it to prosecutors. He was then jailed on old warrants from unrelated drunken driving and petty theft charges. Civil rights advocates decried it as retribution.

In 2003 he moved to Las Vegas, where he makes a living, among other things, shooting video for nightclubs, and says he kept out of trouble right up until the night he met officer Colling.

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Glendale Arizona Police Officers Patrick Hamblin, Fernando Salmeron And Mike Ullerich Fired After Joyride To Las Vegas In Patrol Car

GLENDALE, ARIZONA – Three Glendale police officers who took a patrol car on a joyride to Las Vegas no longer work for the department, it was reported today.

Officers Patrick Hamblin, Fernando Salmeron and Mike Ullerich were separated from the department about three weeks ago, a city representative said.

Details of the personnel investigation were not released.

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Former Las Vegas Nevada TSA Screening Supervisor Pleads Guilty In Federal Court To Airport Theft

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – A former security screening supervisor at McCarran International Airport pleaded guilty Monday to a federal misdemeanor stemming from the theft of $2,000 from an airport lost and found.

John W. Miller, 35, who worked for the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, told U.S. District Judge James Mahan that he stole the money last June to help pay his bills.

Mahan set a July 18 sentencing.

The judge could sentence Miller to a maximum one year in prison and $100,000 fine. But Assistant U.S. Attorney Rob MacDonald said in court that a plea agreement recommends Miller spend six months in a federal halfway house and be placed on three years of probation.

The agreement also calls for 80 hours of community service and repayment of the stolen $2,000, MacDonald said.

In return for the plea, prosecutors are dismissing a felony embezzlement charge against Miller, who is free on a personal recognizance bond.

TSA officials said Miller worked for the federal agency from November 2002 until last September. He was removed from screening operations in August after the theft allegations surfaced.

Miller had worked at McCarran since May 2004, becoming a lead transportation security officer in April 2006, officials said. He oversaw a team of several screeners.

“TSA holds its employees to the highest professional and ethical standards,” TSA spokeswoman Carrie Harmon said in a statement. “TSA aggressively investigates allegations of theft and works closely with law enforcement authorities to ensure that individuals responsible are prosecuted.

“We move to end the federal careers of any employee who engages in illegal activity on the job. The actions of a few individuals in no way reflect on the outstanding job our nearly 50,000 security officers do every day to ensure the security of the traveling public.”

Miller’s lawyer, Assistant Federal Public Defender Jason Carr, declined to comment outside the courtroom after the guilty plea was entered.

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Clark County Nevada Deputy District Attorney David Schubert Quits After Being Caught Buying Cocaine – Prosecuted Paris Hilton And Bruno Mars

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – David Schubert, a Clark County deputy district attorney who prosecuted a pair of high-profile celebrity drug cases, has resigned following his arrest last month on charges of cocaine possession, according to a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office.

Schubert was arrested March 19 in the neighborhood of Lisbon Avenue and Cambridge Street.

Police said the 47-year-old was dropping off and picking up a man who later admitted he was buying drugs for Schubert. Cocaine was found in Schubert’s BMW, according to police.

Recently, Schubert was a prosecutor in drug cases against celebrities Paris Hilton and Bruno Mars. Both took plea deals to avoid jail time.

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Las Vegas Deputy District Attorney David Schubert, High Profile Drug Prosecutor Who Prosecuted Paris Hilton, Busted Buying Cocaine In Known Drug Neighborhood

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – The Las Vegas deputy district attorney who prosecuted Paris Hilton for cocaine possession was arrested over the weekend after allegedly buying a rock of cocaine, authorities said on Monday.

Clark County Deputy District Attorney David Schubert, 47, was taken into custody in Las Vegas on Saturday afternoon and booked on one count of cocaine possession.

Schubert, who has prosecuted Hilton and pop star Bruno Mars on similar charges, was released on Sunday after posting bail and was scheduled for an initial court appearance on Monday.

“I’m very disappointed to learn one of our prosecutors was allegedly buying rock cocaine,” Clark County District Attorney David Roger told Reuters in a telephone interview. “This is an individual I placed a great deal of trust in by assigning him to a state and federal drug task force.”

“That said, he was arrested and he will be charged and prosecuted like any other individual,” he said. “We believe no one is above the law, including a deputy district attorney.”

Roger said his office would charge Schubert and then turn the case over to Nevada’s attorney general to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. He has been suspended pending termination.

According to an arrest report, Schubert was spotted picking up another man, identified as Raymond Streeter, while driving his white BMW in a neighborhood known for narcotics dealing.

Streeter later told police that Schubert, who he knew as “Joe” would have him purchase $40 worth of cocaine, several times a week, according to the arrest report.

Las Vegas defense attorney David Chesnoff, who represented both Hilton and Mars, told Reuters he wished Schubert well.

“I don’t know the facts but I believe in the presumption of innocence,” Chesnoff said.

Hilton, 30, was arrested last August after Las Vegas police found 0.8 grams of cocaine in her purse during a traffic stop. She was fined $2,000 and ordered to perform 200 hours of community service after pleading guilty in September.

Mars, whose real name is Peter Hernandez, was arrested for cocaine possession in September after a bathroom attendant at the Hard Rock Hotel spotted him with a bag of white powder.

The 25-year-old singer pleaded guilty in February and was ordered to serve probation, perform community service and undergo drug counseling.

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Navy Pilots Caught Playing In Lake Tahoe With 33 Million Dollar Helicopters

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA — Two Navy helicopter pilots from North Island Naval Air Station have been grounded over a YouTube video that allegedly shows them dipping the $33 million aircrafts into Lake Tahoe.

In the video taken Sept. 14, both helicopters hit the water and one seems to spin out of control and crash into the water before its pilot apparently pulls the craft back into the air.

A Navy spokesman confirmed that the video was genuine footage of two MH-60 Romeo helicopters from North Island’s Helicopter Maritime Strike 41 squadron, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

Former Air Force pilot Chuck Grace said after watching the video it was incredible the pilot was able to pull the aircraft out of the water but wondered what they were doing over Lake Tahoe.

“These two pilots shouldn’t have been where they were, shouldn’t have been that low and shouldn’t have been what they were doing, I think,” said Grace.

North Island Naval Air Forces command spokesman Lt. Aaron Kakiel told the newspaper the pilots were grounded pending an aviation mishap board investigation.

Lake Tahoe is not a normal training area for Navy pilots. The helicopters were being flown home to North Island from an air show at Mather Air Force Base near Sacramento, the Union-Tribune reported.

Former naval aviator Jim Kidrick said it would not be out of the ordinary to do some training while on the way back.

“You have a tremendous amount of free air space that is everywhere that you can do certain things so long as it is within the bounds of the legality we fly within,” said Kidrick.

Damage to the helicopters was estimated at between $50,000 and $500,000, according to the newspaper, which reported that the grounded pilots had to land at Lake Tahoe Airport following the incident and a different set of pilots eventually flew the helicopters home.

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Nye County Nevada District Attorney Bob Beckett Arrested For Drunk Driving In County Vehicle After Former Madam Heidi Fleiss Calls To Report Suspicious Car

PAHRUMP, NV – New information is being released about the dui arrest of Nye County District Attorney Bob Beckett. It turns out a former madam is responsible for the 911 call that led police to Beckett’s car.

It was none other than Heidi Fleiss who called police to report a suspicious vehicle parked in her neighborhood. The former Hollywood madam did not want to go on camera, but told us that despite the D.A.’s rap sheet, she was pretty surprised when she learned it was Beckett who was behind the wheel that night.

“I guess a lot of people make mistakes. But it sounds like that guy has made a lot of them,” said Pahrump resident Jason Owen.

It’s the talk of the town. Nye County District Attorney Bob Beckett has another run in with the law. After responding to a call Tuesday night, a sheriff’s deputy found him drunk inside his county owned car.

Fleiss tells us she spotted a vehicle just a couple of yards from her home off the gravel road near her house. She said she was concerned, had no idea what it was doing there and that’s why she dialed 911.

Sheriff Tony De Meo says the district attorney had no ID on him and failed all sobriety tests.

“Mr. Beckett was compliant as he was being booked and was respectful of the job the deputy had to do,” said De Meo.

Most Pahrump residents still cant’ believe the odds of Fleiss’ call landing Beckett in jail. Especially since she too was booked in Nye County for driving under the influence of narcotics in 2008.

“That’s really bizarre…of all people,” said Pahrump resident Michelle Hebert.

Yet, they were not exactly shocked that Beckett was drunk at the wheel, since the four term district attorney also faced dui charges in California two years ago. Beckett lost the Republican primary in June. Although he has till the end of this year before he leaves office, many think he should consider resigning. Beckett was also arrested on charges of embezzlement this past may.

Appeared Here

Nye County Nevada District Attorney Bob Beckett Arrested For Drunk Driving – Previously Charged With Drunk Driving After Two Wrecks In California In One Day

PAHRUMP, NEVADA – A rural Nevada district attorney is in trouble again after an overnight arrest on a drunken driving charge.

The Nye County sheriff’s office says Nye County District Attorney Bob Beckett was arrested a little before 11 p.m. Tuesday after he was found in a vehicle parked in a roadway in Pahrump. That’s about 60 miles west of Las Vegas.

Beckett was issued a summons to appear in court at a later date. Beckett lost the Republican primary for a fifth term this year amid allegations of irregularities in an office bad check restitution bank account.

He pleaded guilty to a reduced reckless driving charge in 2009 in California after two vehicle crashes on the same day on a remote desert highway. He was originally charged with drunken driving.

Appeared Here

Las Vegas Nevada Police Officer Bryan Yant Under Investigation For Drugs He Didn’t Seize In Police Raid That Never Took Place – Lied To Justify Shooting Man In June

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – Las Vegas police Detective Bryan Yant is under investigation for apparently lying about drugs he didn’t seize and actions he didn’t take during a 2009 police raid that never happened, the Las Vegas Review-Journal has learned.

Yant, a 10-year veteran of the department who remains on paid leave, last week was cleared by a coroner’s inquest in the fatal shooting of Trevon Cole, 21, while serving a drug warrant in June. In seeking the search warrant, Yant made gross misstatements about Cole’s criminal history.

The department’s internal affairs unit is investigating that case and is questioning Yant’s actions in at least one other drug probe.

In January, Yant and fellow officer David Goris said they sat in a car outside a northwest valley home while a confidential informant bought drugs from a man they identified as William Sigler. That alleged drug buy was used to justify a nighttime search of Sigler’s home 12 days later. Police arrested Sigler and his girlfriend and seized prescription drugs, marijuana and cocaine from the home.

But Sigler’s attorneys and prosecutors now agree that the informant did not buy drugs from Sigler, who was dealing cards at a poker tournament in the Bahamas in January.

Justice of the Peace Joe Bonaventure threw out the case last week. Clark County District Attorney David Roger still can seek an indictment by a grand jury, but he said Wednesday he has not decided whether he will do so.

Investigators also question why Yant tore up and left three documents at Sigler’s home during the January raid. In those documents, obtained by the Review-Journal, Yant describes a different raid of Sigler’s home, one that never took place.

Yant, in a “declaration of arrest” form, describes detaining suspects and photographing evidence at the Sigler home. The form is dated December 2009, but the day of the month is left blank. He also filled out and signed a “preliminary field test checklist” affirming that evidence seized in that nonexistent raid was positive for cocaine but did not list an amount or the specific date.

It’s unclear why Yant filled out paperwork describing events that never happened.

Deputy Chief Joseph Lombardo, who oversees the department’s narcotics section, said the documents pertain to a prior case that went nowhere.

Yant in December said he used department money to buy drugs from Sigler and obtained a search warrant for Sigler’s home, Lombardo said. But Lombardo confirmed that no search was conducted in December, and it’s unclear why the search warrant signed by Justice of the Peace Eric Goodman was never executed.

No December drug buy plays any role in any case against Sigler.

Yant never should have completed paperwork in advance of an anticipated raid, Lombardo said, and leaving those papers in Sigler’s home a month later was “inappropriate.”

Yant’s certification that he had seized cocaine before a raid that never even happened raises “serious questions,” said Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada.

He said Yant’s completion of the form without having the drugs in his possession in particular went “beyond mere laziness and sloppiness. It goes to a process that is totally phony.”

Sigler’s attorneys, John Wright and Jason Weiner, said their client found the torn-up papers in his home after the January raid and pieced them back together. They said that when they asked prosecutors for copies of the department’s marked bills and inventory of drugs bought in January, they inexplicably received only Yant’s paperwork from December.

Weiner said that if the informant really did buy drugs in January, there should be a paper trail. Roger said that his office never received that information from detectives and that his case is based only on the evidence allegedly seized in the January raid.

Sigler’s attorneys challenged that evidence, saying it was obtained through a flawed warrant.

“The money had to go out of Metro and the drugs had to come in, and there is no record of that happening by Metro despite our repeated requests,” Weiner said, adding that, “The bottom line is, our guy was in the Bahamas.”

Lombardo said the department does have records of drugs bought in January. It’s unclear why the records were never given to prosecutors or the defense.

In the Trevon Cole case, Yant in a search warrant affidavit confused Cole, a small-time marijuana dealer, with a man by the same name who had a long history of drug arrests in Houston and California though that man is described as seven years older, at least 3 inches shorter and 100 pounds lighter. Yant and his supervisor, Sgt. John Harney, who is also on paid leave, are under investigation for the way that search warrant was carried out. Goris’ duty status was unclear Wednesday.

The investigations are part of the fallout from police work that district attorneys at last week’s inquest described as “sloppy.”

After the Cole shooting, Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie ordered narcotics detectives to stop serving their own forced-entry search warrants, leaving them for SWAT officers. After the inquest, he extended that order to cover all raids pending a departmental policy review.

In what officials call an unrelated move, the captain overseeing narcotics, Capt. Brett Zimmerman, was recently transferred to the crimes against youth and family bureau, and that bureau’s Capt. Vincent Cannito was sent to narcotics.

Appeared Here

Incredibly Stupid Riverside California Police Officer Assaults And Falsely Imprisons A Child Who Jumped His Own Fence

CARSON CITY, NEVADA – A man claiming to be a police officer from Riverside, Calif., tackled what he thought was a burglar, only to learn the 17-year-old was jumping his own fence, according to a police report.

Officers were called to the 200 block of Pine Lane about 10:53 p.m. Monday after a neighbor heard one man yelling at another.

When Carson City deputies arrived, they found the man holding the teen on the ground.

The man said he was an off-duty Riverside police officer and he had observed the teen jump over a 6-foot fence into a yard on Pine Lane, according to the report.

The man said he confronted the teen, telling him he was an off-duty police officer and to stop. But the teen looked at the man in his shorts, baseball cap and sleeveless shirt, and continued walking away.

The alleged off-duty officer then grabbed the boy in an arm lock and “escorted him to the ground on his stomach,” the report states. The man held the boy there until police arrived.

When deputies arrived the teen told officers he “didn’t want to wake his dad, so he used the back door and jumped the fence.”

The teen said when the guy told him to stop, “he thought he was joking based on what he looked like” and kept on walking. The teen denied any injuries and was free to leave.

The man was “given in-depth instructions to contact dispatch prior to acting in an official capacity in a different state,” according to the report.

Sgt. Brian Humphrey said a call to the Riverside Police Department to confirm the man’s employment was not immediately returned.

Appeared Here

Federal Prisoners Sent Unsupervised From Prison To Prison Via. Greyhound

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – Dwayne Keith Fitzen — “Shadow” to fellow inmates at the federal prison in Waseca, Minn. — was halfway through his 24-year sentence when prison officials decided to move him to a facility in California.

To make the transfer, the Bureau of Prisons did something fairly routine for the government agency: It bought Shadow a one-way bus ticket and sent him, traveling unsupervised and unmarked, on the two-day trip.

Fitzen was 55 at the time, a motorcycle gang member convicted of dealing cocaine. He got off the bus in Las Vegas, about 400 miles short of his scheduled destination, and became a fugitive. Five years later he’s still at large.

Since April 2006, the Bureau of Prisons has allowed 89,794 federal inmates to be transferred without escorts, traveling mainly by bus. The rationale behind the unescorted transfers, according to bureau spokeswoman Traci Billingsley, is purely economic: Having prison officials, or U.S. marshals, in charge of moving inmates who have been prescreened and deemed low-risk would be incredibly expensive, she said. Exactly how much it would cost, the Bureau of Prisons doesn’t know.

Historically, fewer than 1 in 500 inmates being transferred without escorts have absconded, Billingsley said. Although the federal agency doesn’t have the exact numbers for recent years, that calculates to no more than 180 inmates since 2006. The Bureau thinks this number is small enough to justify the cost-saving program, though bus companies don’t agree.

Bus companies have no idea when inmates are being transferred. Greyhound in particular has asked the federal prison system several times to stop transferring convicts on its fleet.

“We feel this is an inherent safety risk to our customers and our employees as well,” Greyhound spokeswoman Abby Wambaugh said.

Greyhound executives learned of the transfer program in 2005 and complained. Prison officials tried to appease them, writing a letter noting that of the 77 inmates who escaped during unescorted transfers from October 2003 to September 2005, all but 19 were recaptured or returned to custody.

Fitzen is one of those 19.

Inmates going Greyhound have been gravy for TV news reporters who stumble upon the subject every few years and attack it with a vengeance. Often, their reports mention Shadow’s Las Vegas escape.

The truth is, unescorted transfers have been happening since the early 1990s, though Billingsley didn’t immediately have the program’s start date or the number of unassisted transfers for years before 2006.

Billingsley also did not have numbers for how many inmates have fled bus transfers in Nevada. But even one escaped inmate is enough to draw public ire, as well as ratings for TV news stations.

In its defense, the Bureau of Prisons offers a fact seldom addressed in reports on the subject: Of the almost 90,000 inmates who have been transferred alone since 2006, the vast majority — 94 percent — were being sent to halfway houses.

Inmates in halfway houses, where they are helped with finding jobs and integrating back into society, are allowed to ride the bus and walk around town freely. Make it to your final destination, in other words, and you can ride the bus all you want.

But not every inmate is being transferred to a halfway house. In the past three years 5,347 federal inmates have been transferred unescorted to minimum-security facilities, more commonly called prison camps.

Prison camp inmates are often sent into communities to do various jobs, repairing buildings, cleaning roads and so on. This work is sometimes performed without a staff escort, or under intermittent supervision, according to the 2005 letter from prison officials to Greyhound. The implied point: The bus isn’t the only opportunity to escape.

Fitzen was headed from Minnesota to the Lompoc Federal Correctional Institution — a low-security facility about 175 miles outside of Los Angeles. If he ever gets caught, he’ll be in a world of trouble. This is one of the “disincentives” prison officials say keep unescorted inmates from fleeing. Most inmates who run are ultimately caught and then face more charges, Billingsley said.

Fitzen got off the bus in Las Vegas, then went to a bank and withdrew $12,000 in cash, according to U.S. marshals, who are still looking for him. He has reportedly been spotted a few times since his escape, but has otherwise lived up to his nickname.

Appeared Here

Nevada Finds That Enforcing Sex Offender Act Is Too Expensive – State’s Efforts To Keep Sex Offenders Jobless, Homeless, Drive Them Insane, And Track Them Costs Big Bucks

NEVADA – The Adam Walsh Act was an instant controversy in Nevada. As soon as state lawmakers adopted the federal sex offender legislation in 2007, lawyers drew up lawsuits that have kept it tied up in court to this day.

But all the debate between advocates and attorneys over whether the Walsh Act is legal or logical now seems for naught. In this economy, the real question is not whether the Walsh Act is constitutional, but whether it’s too expensive. By many calculations, it is.

Sex offender management boards in California and Colorado have recommended their states reject the Adam Walsh Act — which changes the way states track and monitor sex offenders — in part because of the crippling cost. Other states, including Florida, Iowa, Virginia and Texas, are also doing the math and finding that the federal standard seems more expensive to adopt than to ignore, no matter the penalty.

And there are penalties. States have until July 27 to become compliant with Walsh sex offender regulations or risk losing federal finding. In Nevada, meeting the deadline could safeguard hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But carrying out the provisions of the Walsh Act could cost millions. In a state where the budget is beyond tight, we don’t know what the Walsh Act would cost. While states around us scramble do to the math, nobody in Nevada is crunching the numbers. So with the deadline for compliance looming, no one knows whether Nevada going to spend millions to save thousands.

Part of the reason Nevada doesn’t know how much Walsh will cost may lie in the state’s speedy adoption of the federal act. Nevada is one of eight states that passed Walsh regulations after Congress approved them in 2006. The vast remainder of states instead chose to evaluate the Walsh Act, considering its constitutionality first and then its cost.

Concerns now coming to light in these states were barely discussed in Nevada. Instead, issues with Walsh are being worked out in Nevada courts as a result of those lawsuits levied against the act.

One was filed by the Clark County Public Defender’s Office on the grounds that Walsh unfairly affects juveniles and the other by the Nevada ACLU on the grounds that the law violates due process rights and protection from retroactive punishment. Until these cases are resolved, the state has been barred from enforcing Walsh.

And with the future of Nevada sex offender laws in limbo, government agencies aren’t using their calculators. Why compute the cost of a program that may never come to be?

Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, whose office introduced the Walsh Act to Nevada’s Legislature in 2007 and has been defending it in court ever since, said it’s up to the agencies that would be affected to figure out the costs. But representatives of these agencies said nobody is running numbers while the law is stalled in court.

To understand what kind of money Nevada might end up spending — if the law weathers court challenges — we can only look to the calculations of other states. In California, the Sex Offender Management Board came up with an initial assessment of $38 million. Missing the deadline, by comparison, would cost $210,000.

“This is an unfunded mandate,” the board’s chairwoman, Suzanne Brown-McBride said. “There are massive expectations of changes from federal legislation but really no attempt to significantly fund it.”

This complaint has come up before, most notably when the National Conference of State Legislators released a statement last year objecting to elements of the Walsh Act and complaining that it was “crafted without state input or consideration.”

California, though, has a much higher population of sex offenders than Nevada. So perhaps a more apt comparison for Nevada is Virginia, where officials figured it would cost $12.4 million to carry out the Walsh regulations, or $400,000 not to. Or consider Florida: about $3.2 million for Walsh, versus a $2.1 million to $2.8 million penalty for missing the deadline, if not rejecting the sex offender legislation outright. Each state used its own formula, and each came up with the same answer: It would cost more to adopt than to ignore.

So why is the Walsh Act so expensive? Because it would drastically change the way states manage sex offenders. The risk of each to re-offend has to be reconsidered and reclassified. Nevada sex offenders are classified by tiers — the higher the tier, the higher the risk to re-offend. The higher the risk, the closer a sex offender is supposed to be monitored by parole and probation officials. The closer the monitoring, the greater the cost to taxpayers.

Tier is determined by a psychological evaluation of the offender, an assessment of his crime, history and mind. Walsh would replace this system with a tier calculation based solely on the nature of the crime. This new system would turn many sex offenders who have been deemed low-risk into high-risk offenders overnight. Estimates vary, but Clark County parole and probation officials have said the number of Tier 3 offenders, those posing the highest risk, could jump from fewer than 200 to more than 2,000.

There are other provisions in the act, all designed to create a national, uniform system of monitoring and tracking sex offenders. Proponents of the law say it allows for more protection of children from molesters. Critics say the provisions are aren’t just or effective. But both sides of the debate, it appears, can agree Walsh will cost money.

Even John Walsh, the host of America’s Most Wanted, after whose abducted son the law is named, told The New York Times the price tag has become a problem. Walsh, the Times reported, “suggested Congress postpone the compliance deadline. Mr. Walsh said the many obstacles — most recently the recession, which has made it tough for some states to pay for the law’s provisions — need more time to be worked out.”

Not a single state — including the eight that adopted Walsh regulations — has been deemed “compliant” with the law. And noncompliance means a reduction in funding once the deadline passes.

So how much does Nevada stand to lose? It’s another question that nobody, frankly, has an answer for. When the Walsh Act was passed, the penalty for missing the deadline was 10 percent of a federal grant called the Byrne/JAG fund. In 2007, Nevada got about $2.9 million in Byrne funding. In 2008, that number was cut to just over $1.14 million.

On Thursday, the latest draft of the federal stimulus package included $2 billion for Byrne grants nationwide, which meant Nevada could be awarded an estimated $4 million to $8 million in Byrne money, according to Michelle Hamilton, chief of Nevada’s Office of Criminal Justice Assistance. This would mean Nevada risks from $400,000 to $800,000 for failing to adopt Walsh in time — a bigger carrot to chase, but maybe not big enough.

Nevada Corrections Department Director Howard Skolnik told the Associated Press in 2008 he would need at least $500,000 in emergency federal funding to comply with just one element of the Walsh Act: getting DNA samples from every incarcerated sex offender before release from prison.

The Justice Policy Institute calculated that putting the Walsh Act into place would cost Nevada more than $4 million.

But there are myriad additional costs that cannot be estimated. Because the Walsh Act comes with stiffer penalties for sex offenders, a Florida study of Walsh costs noted that “there may be an impact on the court system and county jails. There may be more trials and less pleas … there may be an increase in failure-to-register cases.”

And then there is the cost Nevada has paid, not to adopt Walsh, but to defend it.

Cortez Masto’s office has spent months fighting Walsh challenges in court. The Clark County Public Defender has spent months fighting Cortez Masto. No matter who wins, the state has spent considerable amounts just arguing over it. This does not include the case filed by the Nevada ACLU, or the fact that the civil liberties organization won $145,000 in attorney fees from the state last month.

Cortez Masto’s office has been working with the ACLU and other stakeholders to introduce legislation changing certain elements of the Walsh Act during the 2009 legislative session. But this effort to appease all sides presents its own problems. Any changes made to the law probably won’t satisfy the Justice Department, whose understanding of Walsh compliance appears to be nothing short of strict, absolute adoption of the federal act as written.

States still working out the complications of Walsh can file for two one-year deadline extensions. Cortez Masto said her office was planning to request a one-year extension, though a representative of the Justice Department said Friday it had not received the extension application. Extra time to work on Walsh should prevent Nevada from being immediately penalized, though it doesn’t resolve the central question, which is how much it would cost to adopt Walsh, and whether it’s worth the price.

Walsh could be complicated and costly enough to prompt politicians in the states where the act has not yet been voted on to simply decide they aren’t interested. And if this happens, the entire purpose of the Walsh Act, which was to create a national, unified system for dealing with sex offenders in every state, could be undermined — leaving Nevada, as an early adopter, with its hands tied.

Appeared Here

Nevada Finds That Enforcing Sex Offender Act Is Too Expensive – State’s Efforts To Keep Sex Offenders Jobless, Homeless, Drive Them Insane, And Track Them Costs Big Bucks

NEVADA – The Adam Walsh Act was an instant controversy in Nevada. As soon as state lawmakers adopted the federal sex offender legislation in 2007, lawyers drew up lawsuits that have kept it tied up in court to this day.

But all the debate between advocates and attorneys over whether the Walsh Act is legal or logical now seems for naught. In this economy, the real question is not whether the Walsh Act is constitutional, but whether it’s too expensive. By many calculations, it is.

Sex offender management boards in California and Colorado have recommended their states reject the Adam Walsh Act — which changes the way states track and monitor sex offenders — in part because of the crippling cost. Other states, including Florida, Iowa, Virginia and Texas, are also doing the math and finding that the federal standard seems more expensive to adopt than to ignore, no matter the penalty.

And there are penalties. States have until July 27 to become compliant with Walsh sex offender regulations or risk losing federal finding. In Nevada, meeting the deadline could safeguard hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But carrying out the provisions of the Walsh Act could cost millions. In a state where the budget is beyond tight, we don’t know what the Walsh Act would cost. While states around us scramble do to the math, nobody in Nevada is crunching the numbers. So with the deadline for compliance looming, no one knows whether Nevada going to spend millions to save thousands.

Part of the reason Nevada doesn’t know how much Walsh will cost may lie in the state’s speedy adoption of the federal act. Nevada is one of eight states that passed Walsh regulations after Congress approved them in 2006. The vast remainder of states instead chose to evaluate the Walsh Act, considering its constitutionality first and then its cost.

Concerns now coming to light in these states were barely discussed in Nevada. Instead, issues with Walsh are being worked out in Nevada courts as a result of those lawsuits levied against the act.

One was filed by the Clark County Public Defender’s Office on the grounds that Walsh unfairly affects juveniles and the other by the Nevada ACLU on the grounds that the law violates due process rights and protection from retroactive punishment. Until these cases are resolved, the state has been barred from enforcing Walsh.

And with the future of Nevada sex offender laws in limbo, government agencies aren’t using their calculators. Why compute the cost of a program that may never come to be?

Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, whose office introduced the Walsh Act to Nevada’s Legislature in 2007 and has been defending it in court ever since, said it’s up to the agencies that would be affected to figure out the costs. But representatives of these agencies said nobody is running numbers while the law is stalled in court.

To understand what kind of money Nevada might end up spending — if the law weathers court challenges — we can only look to the calculations of other states. In California, the Sex Offender Management Board came up with an initial assessment of $38 million. Missing the deadline, by comparison, would cost $210,000.

“This is an unfunded mandate,” the board’s chairwoman, Suzanne Brown-McBride said. “There are massive expectations of changes from federal legislation but really no attempt to significantly fund it.”

This complaint has come up before, most notably when the National Conference of State Legislators released a statement last year objecting to elements of the Walsh Act and complaining that it was “crafted without state input or consideration.”

California, though, has a much higher population of sex offenders than Nevada. So perhaps a more apt comparison for Nevada is Virginia, where officials figured it would cost $12.4 million to carry out the Walsh regulations, or $400,000 not to. Or consider Florida: about $3.2 million for Walsh, versus a $2.1 million to $2.8 million penalty for missing the deadline, if not rejecting the sex offender legislation outright. Each state used its own formula, and each came up with the same answer: It would cost more to adopt than to ignore.

So why is the Walsh Act so expensive? Because it would drastically change the way states manage sex offenders. The risk of each to re-offend has to be reconsidered and reclassified. Nevada sex offenders are classified by tiers — the higher the tier, the higher the risk to re-offend. The higher the risk, the closer a sex offender is supposed to be monitored by parole and probation officials. The closer the monitoring, the greater the cost to taxpayers.

Tier is determined by a psychological evaluation of the offender, an assessment of his crime, history and mind. Walsh would replace this system with a tier calculation based solely on the nature of the crime. This new system would turn many sex offenders who have been deemed low-risk into high-risk offenders overnight. Estimates vary, but Clark County parole and probation officials have said the number of Tier 3 offenders, those posing the highest risk, could jump from fewer than 200 to more than 2,000.

There are other provisions in the act, all designed to create a national, uniform system of monitoring and tracking sex offenders. Proponents of the law say it allows for more protection of children from molesters. Critics say the provisions are aren’t just or effective. But both sides of the debate, it appears, can agree Walsh will cost money.

Even John Walsh, the host of America’s Most Wanted, after whose abducted son the law is named, told The New York Times the price tag has become a problem. Walsh, the Times reported, “suggested Congress postpone the compliance deadline. Mr. Walsh said the many obstacles — most recently the recession, which has made it tough for some states to pay for the law’s provisions — need more time to be worked out.”

Not a single state — including the eight that adopted Walsh regulations — has been deemed “compliant” with the law. And noncompliance means a reduction in funding once the deadline passes.

So how much does Nevada stand to lose? It’s another question that nobody, frankly, has an answer for. When the Walsh Act was passed, the penalty for missing the deadline was 10 percent of a federal grant called the Byrne/JAG fund. In 2007, Nevada got about $2.9 million in Byrne funding. In 2008, that number was cut to just over $1.14 million.

On Thursday, the latest draft of the federal stimulus package included $2 billion for Byrne grants nationwide, which meant Nevada could be awarded an estimated $4 million to $8 million in Byrne money, according to Michelle Hamilton, chief of Nevada’s Office of Criminal Justice Assistance. This would mean Nevada risks from $400,000 to $800,000 for failing to adopt Walsh in time — a bigger carrot to chase, but maybe not big enough.

Nevada Corrections Department Director Howard Skolnik told the Associated Press in 2008 he would need at least $500,000 in emergency federal funding to comply with just one element of the Walsh Act: getting DNA samples from every incarcerated sex offender before release from prison.

The Justice Policy Institute calculated that putting the Walsh Act into place would cost Nevada more than $4 million.

But there are myriad additional costs that cannot be estimated. Because the Walsh Act comes with stiffer penalties for sex offenders, a Florida study of Walsh costs noted that “there may be an impact on the court system and county jails. There may be more trials and less pleas … there may be an increase in failure-to-register cases.”

And then there is the cost Nevada has paid, not to adopt Walsh, but to defend it.

Cortez Masto’s office has spent months fighting Walsh challenges in court. The Clark County Public Defender has spent months fighting Cortez Masto. No matter who wins, the state has spent considerable amounts just arguing over it. This does not include the case filed by the Nevada ACLU, or the fact that the civil liberties organization won $145,000 in attorney fees from the state last month.

Cortez Masto’s office has been working with the ACLU and other stakeholders to introduce legislation changing certain elements of the Walsh Act during the 2009 legislative session. But this effort to appease all sides presents its own problems. Any changes made to the law probably won’t satisfy the Justice Department, whose understanding of Walsh compliance appears to be nothing short of strict, absolute adoption of the federal act as written.

States still working out the complications of Walsh can file for two one-year deadline extensions. Cortez Masto said her office was planning to request a one-year extension, though a representative of the Justice Department said Friday it had not received the extension application. Extra time to work on Walsh should prevent Nevada from being immediately penalized, though it doesn’t resolve the central question, which is how much it would cost to adopt Walsh, and whether it’s worth the price.

Walsh could be complicated and costly enough to prompt politicians in the states where the act has not yet been voted on to simply decide they aren’t interested. And if this happens, the entire purpose of the Walsh Act, which was to create a national, unified system for dealing with sex offenders in every state, could be undermined — leaving Nevada, as an early adopter, with its hands tied.

Appeared Here

Las Vegas Nevada Police Sit On Their Fat Asses For 15 Months After Judge Orders Illegally Seized Property Returned – Cops Also Illegally Took Property To Arizona

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – Metro Police detectives took steps this week to comply with a more than 15-month-old court order, but it may not have been enough to prevent District Judge Michelle Leavitt from holding them in contempt of court at the end of the month.

In 2007, authorities arrested more than 30 people in an Arizona-based investigation that focused on a multimillion-dollar gambling operation linked to an offshore betting Web site in Costa Rica. Most of those arrested were from the Phoenix-area, but a few Las Vegas Valley residents were also ensnared in the probe.

Metro confiscated money and property during the April 2007 raids here — and then allowed Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies to spirit away the loot to Phoenix without first obtaining the authorization of any court. Leavitt ruled the raids and the removal of the property to another state illegal and the following September ordered the cash and goods to be returned.

Through a series of legal maneuvers that ultimately involved the Nevada Supreme Court, attorneys for the police have managed to prevent Leavitt from holding a hearing on whether to punish Metro.

The cops also had not returned any of the property — until this week.

On Wednesday, the Arizona sheriff’s deputies, with some prodding from Metro and its attorneys, gave back $252,000 in cash and a valuable coin collection seized from 45-year-old Las Vegan Brandt England, his attorney, David Chesnoff, said.

Chesnoff also said criminal charges have been dismissed against Brandt in Arizona.

But two other local targets of the Arizona investigation, 63-year-old Michael V. Buono Sr. and his son, Michael A. Buono, have yet to see a horde of jewelry and several thousand dollars that police took from them. Criminal charges have been dismissed against them, as well, in Arizona. The Buonos’ attorney, John Momot, however, isn’t willing to let Metro off the hook. He wants Leavitt to go through with the contempt hearing slated for Jan. 30.

“I’m not making any deals,” he says. “I want financial compensation for my clients for what they had to go through the past year and a half.”

Appeared Here

Las Vegas Nevada Police Sit On Their Fat Asses For 15 Months After Judge Orders Illegally Seized Property Returned – Cops Also Illegally Took Property To Arizona

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – Metro Police detectives took steps this week to comply with a more than 15-month-old court order, but it may not have been enough to prevent District Judge Michelle Leavitt from holding them in contempt of court at the end of the month.

In 2007, authorities arrested more than 30 people in an Arizona-based investigation that focused on a multimillion-dollar gambling operation linked to an offshore betting Web site in Costa Rica. Most of those arrested were from the Phoenix-area, but a few Las Vegas Valley residents were also ensnared in the probe.

Metro confiscated money and property during the April 2007 raids here — and then allowed Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies to spirit away the loot to Phoenix without first obtaining the authorization of any court. Leavitt ruled the raids and the removal of the property to another state illegal and the following September ordered the cash and goods to be returned.

Through a series of legal maneuvers that ultimately involved the Nevada Supreme Court, attorneys for the police have managed to prevent Leavitt from holding a hearing on whether to punish Metro.

The cops also had not returned any of the property — until this week.

On Wednesday, the Arizona sheriff’s deputies, with some prodding from Metro and its attorneys, gave back $252,000 in cash and a valuable coin collection seized from 45-year-old Las Vegan Brandt England, his attorney, David Chesnoff, said.

Chesnoff also said criminal charges have been dismissed against Brandt in Arizona.

But two other local targets of the Arizona investigation, 63-year-old Michael V. Buono Sr. and his son, Michael A. Buono, have yet to see a horde of jewelry and several thousand dollars that police took from them. Criminal charges have been dismissed against them, as well, in Arizona. The Buonos’ attorney, John Momot, however, isn’t willing to let Metro off the hook. He wants Leavitt to go through with the contempt hearing slated for Jan. 30.

“I’m not making any deals,” he says. “I want financial compensation for my clients for what they had to go through the past year and a half.”

Appeared Here

Nevada County Nevada Sheriff’s Department Blood Tester Kathleen Cherry Charged After Driving Drunk To County Jail To Test Drunk Driver’s Blood

CARSON CITY, NEVADA – A contract worker for a Nevada sheriff’s department is accused of driving drunk to a jail to test a suspect’s blood alcohol content.

Fifty-three-year-old Kathleen Cherry told a Carson City sheriff’s deputy who smelled alcohol on her breath that she had one margarita before driving Friday night.

She’s accused of failing field sobriety tests and registering a blood alcohol content over the state’s legal limit of 0.08 percent.

Cherry is a phlebotomist, trained to draw blood for lab tests. She was booked on a misdemeanor drunken driving charge, and her bail was set at more than $1,000.

She declined to comment.

Appeared Here

Nevada County Nevada Sheriff’s Department Blood Tester Kathleen Cherry Charged After Driving Drunk To County Jail To Test Drunk Driver’s Blood

CARSON CITY, NEVADA – A contract worker for a Nevada sheriff’s department is accused of driving drunk to a jail to test a suspect’s blood alcohol content.

Fifty-three-year-old Kathleen Cherry told a Carson City sheriff’s deputy who smelled alcohol on her breath that she had one margarita before driving Friday night.

She’s accused of failing field sobriety tests and registering a blood alcohol content over the state’s legal limit of 0.08 percent.

Cherry is a phlebotomist, trained to draw blood for lab tests. She was booked on a misdemeanor drunken driving charge, and her bail was set at more than $1,000.

She declined to comment.

Appeared Here