Thursday, March 12, 1998 | 9:59 a.m.
Ken Sheldon thought his neighborhood was under fire.
However, the barrage Sheldon heard outside his southwest Las Vegas home about a month ago was only that of a drill -- Metro Police's SWAT team was training inside a vacant house across the street in the 6200 block of Procyon Avenue.
That won't be happening again, according to McCarran International Airport officials.
As a result of complaints from neighbors like Sheldon, the airport has rescinded an agreement it had with Metro allowing the law enforcement agency to use vacant homes owned by the airport for training exercises.
In the agreement Metro was supposed to notify residents before conducting its training exercises. However, airport officials say Metro's staff did not inform neighboring residents about the impending training.
Sheldon backed up the airport's claim saying he and his neighbors on the cul-de-sac were not notified that Metro's SWAT team would be training in the area. "We did not know in advance. We had no notification whatsoever."
According to a Feb. 23 letter to Deputy Chief Mike Hawkins from Thomas Nash, senior management analyst for the airport, Metro officials did not comply with the airport's requirements.
Those requirements included giving proper notification to all surrounding residents, providing exact scheduling dates and times of use, and getting authorization for that use, the letter said.
Nash, in his letter to Metro, wrote: "The continued disregard of these basic, necessary requirements by your staff can no longer be excused. Consequently, our invitation to your department to use airport surplus property for your training purposes is being withdrawn. Any further training activity on airport property will be considered unauthorized use and reported accordingly."
Hawkins, who was notified by the airport last month of the ban, said Metro would appeal the decision.
The airport has been buying houses since 1991 under a "willing seller-willing buyer" program that gives qualified residents the option to sell homes that have been adversely effected by noise because they're directly below the flight path, airport Deputy Director Randy Walker said.
Walker added that the Clark County Fire Department also was notified "not in writing, but verbally" that they, too, would no longer be allowed to use the houses for training purposes.
"We've re-examined the policy," Walker said. "We've gotten too many complaints."
Steve La-Sky, spokesman for the fire department, said his understanding was that the fire department "has a good working relationship with the airport" and was not aware of a ban.
Most of the airport's houses are rented out until all the houses in the neighborhood are purchased by McCarran, then they're demolished, Walker said. But because some of the houses are inhabitable, the airport has allowed police and the fire department to use the houses for training, Walker said.
"It was a good thing that got out of hand, so we're just not going to do it anymore," Walker said. "Our goal is to be a good neighbor until we acquire the entire neighborhood."
One of the most recent SWAT training exercises was at 6627 Procyon Ave. at Marin Street just west of Industrial Road, Adam Mayberry, spokesman for the airport, said.
Sheldon, who along with his wife rents his house from the airport, said Metro did the training exercises on Procyon "multiple times."
"The first time it was in the afternoon," he said. "They came in a bus that was marked 'prisoners.' There were cars parked everywhere. The cars were unmarked. Only one was a police squad car. It sounded to me like there was live gunfire going off in there."
He was inside his home when he said he suddenly heard what he believed was gunfire.
"It was a repetitious boom. They shot up the house. There was more than just a little firing going on."
It was loud enough that it frightened him and his wife, Sheldon said.
"We locked the door and ducked down," he said. "I had no idea what was going on. It would be a matter of courtesy to let the neighborhood know when you're going to have gunfire going off."
He said the vacant house was "shot up more than once."
"On multiple occasions the police bus and unmarked cars were parked here," he said from his house as he looked at the now vacant lot. "These are violent things, gunfire. I was afraid there were errant bullets flying around in the neighborhood."
Hawkins, who described the sounds as "distraction bangs," said the first he knew about any complaints from neighbors was when he received a phone call from Nash several days before he received the letter.
Metro's SWAT team's latest training exercise was held inside a house on the southeast side of the valley on Pine Street where "the nearest neighbor was a football field away," Hawkins said. Nearby, across Sunset Road near Pecos Boulevard, is Wayne Newton's Shenandoah ranch estate.
Metro faxed liability information to the airport the day before that training exercise, Hawkins said. But Nash told Hawkins he never received it.
"It's a communications problem," Hawkins said. "That's all it is."
He said Metro was planning to ask Walker to reconsider the airport's decision.
Hawkins described the use of the houses as "a very valuable training aid for SWAT officers. How many places are there where you have abandoned buildings that are set to be demolished? All we can do is request that they reconsider."
La-Sky agreed. "You can't duplicate that kind of training on a chalk board," he said.
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