Holidays, school break delay search for new UNLV police chief

Friday, Nov. 26, 1999 | 10:42 a.m.

UNLV campus police learned in a closed-door meeting this week that because of the Yuletide holiday and semester break the university probably will not be able to hire a new police chief until late February or early March.

A meeting Wednesday between the university administration and about two dozen officers, dispatchers and other school public safety officials "will help open the lines of communication," said UNLV Vice President of Student Services Robert Ackerman.

It was thought that a topic of the meeting would be the Nov. 15 dismissal of UNLV Police Chief and Public Safety Director David Hollenbeck. That was not the case.

"He was mentioned in passing, but we did not talk about David," Ackerman said, noting that Hollenbeck is on leave with pay and will be assigned new duties at the university by human resource officials.

The university police force has been the focus of criticism and lawsuits from students and others who claim they have been harassed and abused by campus officers -- highly volatile claims that undoubtedly hastened Hollenbeck's ouster.

Subjects discussed during the three-hour meeting included:

* The need for appointing a public information officer from within the police department instead of relying on the UNLV public information office to get across the police point of view to the news media.

* The need for doubling the staff of police officers to bring the UNLV police force in line with campus police forces at major urban universities.

* The need to have a chief of police separate from a public safety director. A police chief would oversee the department's 21 state officers. The public safety director would oversee the police support staff, parking enforcement and dispatchers.

Ackerman told the officers, some of whom are UNLV students, he wants their input into putting together the list of qualifications for the new police chief/public safety director.

"We are up against the holidays," Ackerman said, noting that getting a search committee going will be difficult as the school will be on semester break until the middle of January.

Ackerman said there would be a nationwide hunt for Hollenbeck's replacement. Senior Sgt. Don Drake is serving as interim police boss.

Ron Cuzze, an officer with the 27-year-old UNLV police department and president of the State Peace Officers Counsel, said, "it (not getting a permanent leader quickly) is not a problem -- we function like the military, make replacements and still function efficiently."

Cuzze said one of the key issues that needs to be resolved is the size of the department. He said the national average for major universities in urban areas is two officers per 1,000 students.

UNLV has about 23,000 students. That would mean that the budgeted staff of 24 officers -- the department is looking to hire three more to get its full compliment -- would have to nearly double to 46. UNLV officers are paid $29,000-$44,000 annually.

The department, which now has 105 workers, also employs seven dispatchers, 36 reserve officers and more than 40 parking enforcement employees, many part time.

Another key topic was image and morale, two areas that can be addressed by having a police public information officer who can address issues reported by the news media from stories told by students angry over actions by campus police.

"A lot of the problems with those stories are that no one has heard our side," Cuzze said. "The reporters called the university's public information office and were told that the university had no comment."

One complaint was that in November 1997 black people were frisked by officers attending a play at Artemus Ham Concert Hall, while white people were not searched. The incident resulted in the filing of a lawsuit that may become the basis for a class-action lawsuit for about 75 people who claim they were abused by campus police.

UNLV police say that a number of the incidents in question involved auxiliary officers or private security not associated with the university's police force.

UNLV police officials note that last year there were more than 200 major events on campus, including concerts and sporting events attended by 1 million people with very few complaints of campus police misconduct.