Metro officer gets verbal reprimand for racial slur

Cathy Scott

Friday, Jan. 30, 1998 | 10:36 a.m.

A Metro Police officer has been given a verbal reprimand and ordered to take a cultural awareness class following a racial slur he made during an academy class at the Clark County Detention Center earlier this month.

Undersheriff Richard Winget, sitting in for Sheriff Jerry Keller while he's out of town, said he handed down the reprimand Thursday to Officer Dan Holley.

Holley told reporters Thursday that it would take time to rebuild his reputation with officers. Holley is vice president of the Police Protective Association, which represents the rank and file of Metro.

Holley was addressing 36 cadets in a corrections academy class on Jan. 15 when he referred to the Martin Luther King holiday as "Martin Luther Coon" day. Twenty-one cadets issued complaints to their supervisor. Four black cadets were in the room when the remark was made, Winget said.

The reprimand included an order to attend a six-hour cultural awareness class on discrimination issues, as well as becoming familiar with the department's handbook on preventing discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace, Winget said.

Holley issued a written apology this week.

But black leaders and activists, along with some officers and members of the PPA, have called for Holley's resignation from the PPA. He was elected to the post three years ago. Holley has said he will not resign, and referred to the racial slur as a slip of the tongue.

Rev. James Rogers, president of the Las Vegas chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said earlier that a remark like that "is not a slip of the tongue."

"It's familiar to those who say it," Rogers said.