Police, ACLU view officers’ acts differently

Keith Paul

Monday, Aug. 28, 2000 | 11:45 a.m.

Two Metro Police training officers and two recent graduates of the police academy were captured on Hard Rock hotel-casino surveillance tape acting rude and belligerent while arresting a woman. But police officials deny that the officers' actions rise to the level of misconduct as charged by the American Civil Liberties Union.

A police review of the tape showing a male officer patting down a woman has led Metro to propose changes in its policy of male officers checking female suspects.

"The officers mimic, sarcastically answer her questions and speak to her in an inappropriate manner," Undersheriff Richard Winget said. "They were warned those actions are not acceptable."

ACLU officials say the officers' actions are more than just inappropriate.

"This is about the way she was being treated," Gary Peck, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada, said. "And if those were training officers, it is disturbing how new officers are being trained."

The ACLU provided the tape to Metro officials to handle the matter internally. ACLU officials then made the tape public last week after Hard Rock surveillance officer Harold Langert, who brought a copy of the tape to the ACLU, was fired.

On March 8 Langert was working in the surveillance room at the Hard Rock when he saw four Metro officers go into a holding room to take a woman into custody on a forgery allegation. Two male officers stood just inside the room by the door as the female officer went inside the room.

The fourth officer -- a male -- went into the holding room and told the woman to stand up and put her hands behind her back. The officer then put handcuffs on her.

The male officer started to pat down the woman, which is routine procedure to check for weapons. When the officer put his hands on the woman's leg, she objected.

"Is a man supposed to be touching me even when a woman is right here?" she asked.

She was told that he was and then told to be quiet. When she questioned the officers again about the pat down, she was not told why the male officer was doing it and again told to be quiet.

She asked for the officers' names. None of the officers immediately gave their names, saying they would be on the booking sheet. Then one officer responded with "Pat Trolman" -- an old police joke meaning patrolman.

Langert said as he watched the officers he believed they were demeaning the woman and not acting professionally.

"What I saw was something I couldn't imagine was proper," said Langert, who worked as a surveillance officer at the Hard Rock for about a year. "I thought about what I saw for a couple of days."

A few days later, he said, he made a copy of the casino surveillance tape -- which he knew was against the hotel's policy. He took the tape to Peck, who then took the tape to Winget.

Winget said the male officer's pat down of the woman was not inappropriate, but a review of the tape prompted Metro to consider changing its policy.

"If requested and a female officer is there, the female officer should do the pat down of a female suspect," Winget said the proposed policy states.

During the incident at the Hard Rock, the male officer conducting the pat down was in training and demonstrating to his training officer he could do it correctly, Winget said.

The female officer was just out of the academy and was in a "watch mode" at the time, he said.

"There is no excuse for being abusive and obnoxious," Allen Lichtenstein, an attorney for the ACLU, said. "I kind of shudder to think how this officer is going to act when there is no one around training him."

Langert said he was so disturbed by the officers' actions, he felt something needed to be done. But making the tape cost him his job.

Winget said he instructed a lieutenant to go to the Hard Rock's security director to say that if officers had behaved incorrectly, police administration or Internal Affairs could be contacted. But, Winget said, the Hard Rock security chief didn't know anything about the tape.

Hard Rock security started an investigation. Langert said on Aug. 10 he was asked by hotel security supervisors if he knew anything about the tape. When he said he had made a copy and had given it to the ACLU, he was suspended, then fired the next week.

Winget said he didn't want Langert to be fired and offered to speak with Hard Rock officials about Langert's job. The officer was refused. The Hard Rock's security director could not be reached for comment this morning.