Williams wants regents to file UNLV cop report

Friday, Oct. 1, 1999 | 11:26 a.m.

An assemblyman who helped author the law requiring reports on campus police activity be sent to the Nevada Legislature says he is sending letters to university presidents inviting them to a committee meeting to explain why the law wasn't followed.

"The legislative committee on education meets on Oct. 25," said Wendell Williams, D-Clark County. "As chairman I will bring these entities into the committee meeting.

"It is up to the administration to see that the laws are adhered to. It falls on the university leadership. The blame for not reporting is up to the administration."

Williams said the law requiring that reports be filed was the result of a series of complaints against the campus police from people who were students, teachers or visitors to the campus.

"The last incident before the legislation was written involved two brothers who were handcuffed, thrown to the ground and sprayed with pepper spray," he said. "One lady complained about being handcuffed to the saddle of a horse."

He said there were enough complaints against the police to warrant the legislation, which was written at the urging of a number of students.

At issue is the law written in 1993 by Williams and Assemblyman Morse Arberry Jr., D-Clark County, requiring the Board of Regents to provide a report on campus police no later than April 15 on years when the Legislature is in session.

In 1995 the report was passed on to the Legislature, but in 1997 and this year UNLV neglected to send the report.

UNLV spokesman Tom Flagg noted that the University of Nevada, Reno also failed to send its reports on to the regents.

Robert Ackerman, UNLV vice president of student services, admitted there may have been an oversight in not forwarding the reports to the regents, but in defense of UNLV he said the regents didn't ask for the reports.

He is bothered by the wrong impression the public is getting about the failure to file the reports, which the regents should have in a few days.

"There was never any attempt to cover up anything," Ackerman emphasized.

All of the information contained in the reports is readily available to the public, and police reports are e-mailed daily to everyone on an e-mail list.

In addition, police reports routinely are printed in the campus newspaper, the Rebel Yell.

Reports also are printed in the class schedule catalogue available to anyone every semester, with the crime statistics going back four years.

Ackerman said all of the information is readily available and as soon as it was brought to the university's attention that the reports had not been sent to the regents as required by law, the reports were compiled.

Information in the report, about 20-pages long, covers a variety of subjects such as training for the 20-person campus police force.

The crime statistics cover such things as homicide, sexual assault, burglary and other crimes as well as complaints against the police department about use of excessive force.

The report, however, does not contain information about complaints of verbal abuse, harassment or any other issues unrelated to allegations of excessive violence.

Ackerman said that information is not kept because the Legislature did not require it.

Ackerman said if the Legislature's education committee is going to invite someone to its next meeting to explain why the reports were not filed, it should be the chancellor, since it is the chancellor's responsibility to get the reports and send them on.

Jill Derby, chairwoman of the Board of Regents, said gathering the reports somehow "fell through the cracks."

But, she said, she can't recall any major complaints against campus police that have raised the concern of regents.

"It isn't something I think of as a recurrent problem," Derby said.