Advisory board begins probe of UNLV police

Tuesday, Oct. 19, 1999 | 11:53 a.m.

A Clark County high school principal claims UNLV police handcuffed and abused him after a reggae concert on campus four years ago.

A former student claims UNLV police handcuffed and abused him when he was out for an early-morning jog on campus five months ago.

A community college student claims UNLV police handcuffed and abused her last month when she was covering a rock concert at the Thomas & Mack Center for her school newspaper, the Coyote.

Do these alleged incidents reflect a pattern of police misconduct or are they defensible actions carried out by a 20-man department charged with keeping the peace on a 300-acre campus where more than 20,000 students attend classes and thousands more routinely attend concerts, sporting events and other activities?

Perhaps the question will be answered by a newly created UNLV Department of Public Safety Advisory Board, which held its first meeting Monday, a meeting that had to be moved from a small room in the humanities building to a larger conference room in the Tam Alumni Center because of an overflow crowd of student protesters.

Those same students, many of them members of the student chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, plan a protest rally at 11 a.m. Wednesday at the Alumni Amphitheater.

"It takes a significant amount of courage for students to come forward," political science senior Joey Cohn said before the Monday board meeting.

Catherine Clein, a junior and president of the Student ACLU, says an atmosphere of fear permeates the campus -- fear among both students and faculty that the administration will seek retribution against anyone who defies it.

Elaine Rojas, who works in the controller's office and is a member of the advisory board, agrees there is fear on campus -- but it is fear of the students.

"The behavior of the students is feared by many in the community," Rojas said during the board meeting.

But Ronan Matthew, principal at Cheyenne High School; Leroy Hudson, a former student and now manager of a theater; and Denise Jaramillo, a community college student, say no one had anything to fear from them when they suddenly found themselves surrounded by police, handcuffed and physically and verbally abused.

Matthew, a native of Jamaica, still bristles when he recalls the evening four years ago when he left the Ham Concert Hall.

In the parking lot he saw that police had stopped a car occupied by some friends he had attended a concert with.

"I went over there and asked if everything was OK, and my friends said it was nothing," Matthew, who was principal of Opportunity School at the time, recalled. "I was going to go about my business, but before I could move an officer said 'get the f... away from the car' and I said that language wasn't necessary and he grabbed me, threw me onto the top of the car.

"I was put in handcuffs, and he went into my back pocket and went through my wallet."

Matthew said he found himself surrounded by police who threatened to arrest him for interfering with their work.

He said he complained about his treatment, but nothing was ever done.

Jaramillo, a student reporter for the Community College of Southern Nevada's newspaper, said she has not bothered to complain to the UNLV administration about her abuse at the hands of campus police because nothing would be done.

She said at a concert last month she was backstage to interview musician Dave Wakeling, who was in the opening act for Hootie and the Blowfish. While there she said she took a number of pictures but was told not to.

"The promoter led me away, shouting at me and said he was going to have me arrested. Before I knew it I was surrounded by 10 campus police," she said. They yanked my hands behind my back and handcuffed me and dragged me down a hallway to a holding tank.

"One of them shoved me, and I fell to the ground. I was on my knees crying, trying to explain who I was and they never asked me for any kind of identification a all."

She said she was released when Wakeling found her and vouched for her.

Leroy Hudson, however, still faces criminal charges from a confrontation with campus police that occurred when he was jogging shortly before 5 a.m. on May 21 along East Harmon near the new library.

He said he suddenly found himself surrounded by police cars and handcuffed.

Hudson said the incident report said only "pedestrian contact," but he was charged in district court with three misdemeanors -- pedestrian on a highway, resisting arrest and battery of a police officer, charges Hudson vehemently denies.

It was not his first run-in with police. In 1996 he filed a complaint against them because he was stopped while jogging across campus "because I looked suspicious."

David Hollenbeck, UNLV's director of Public Safety, defended his department and says there is nothing to hide.

He believes a lot of the problems being aired are perception problems. "There are a number of anecdotal stories, but when we look into them, they start disappearing," he said.

Hollenbeck noted that his department is not only responsible for student safety, but officers must maintain order at concerts and other events that might have 45,000 people in attendance.

He said his officers go through the same training as police in North Las Vegas, Henderson and Boulder City.