Officer cleared in killing returns to patrol duty

Thursday, June 17, 1999 | 10:40 a.m.

Metro Police Officer Bruce Gentner, who was cleared in a coroner's inquest after killing an unarmed man April 12, has been returned to regular duty in southwest Las Vegas -- serving in a one-man patrol vehicle, just as he was the night of the shooting.

"He's a fine officer who did his job, and a jury cleared him," Metro spokesman Steve Meriwether said today, noting that Gentner, 27, has been working daily shifts since shortly after the coroner's jury verdict.

Meriwether said Metro does not have a policy of putting supervisors in patrol cars with officers who were involved in such controversial incidents, even for a short period. And, he said, the department would not take such action for appearance's sake.

"Why would we do that to him?" Meriwether said, noting that most of the patrol cars on the streets of Clark County are one-person vehicles.

"It would be nice to have two officers in every vehicle -- safer for the officers and safer for the public -- but the area is just too large to cover."

Gentner shot and killed 32-year-old John Perrin after he stopped the pedestrian on Rainbow Boulevard just south of Tropicana Avenue.

Perrin was carrying a basketball and, according to testimony at the inquest, made a move toward his waistband.

At the hearing Gentner testified that he believed Perrin was a drug dealer who was reaching for a gun in the dimly lit lot. Gentner fired 14 shots. Six bullets struck Perrin, who didn't have a gun but did have a jar containing a chemical used to manufacture methamphetamine.

Also at the inquest, it was revealed that Perrin was under the influence of narcotics.

The Perrin family's lawyers, Las Vegas attorney Brent Bryson and California civil rights lawyer John Burris, have filed a $25 million wrongful death lawsuit against Metro.

Nevada American Civil Liberties Union Director Gary Peck in a recent Sun story called the coroner's inquest procedure "a sham that allows officers to give their version of events which go unchallenged, and are taken for the truth."

Of the 86 officers brought before coroner's juries in the last two decades none have been found to have been criminally responsible for killings.

Meriwether said members of the general public cleared Gentner. Six of seven jurors declared Perrin's death was justifiable at the May 7 inquest.

Meriwether said the minute an officer is cleared of wrongdoing in a shooting death, he is eligible to return from administrative leave -- suspension with pay -- and assume his normal duties.