Regent sees changes for reporting policies of campuses

Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2000 | 11:21 a.m.

A university regent says the system's policy on the release of documents may have to be changed in the wake of UNLV's refusal to make public a state report critical of its police department.

"If we have to change the system code, then we should change it to avoid this happening again," Regent Tom Kirkpatrick, chairman of the Campus Environment Committee, said. "I believe we should be an open book."

Kirkpatrick's committee will meet 11 a.m. Thursday at the Community College of Southern Nevada's Cheyenne campus to review the methods by which the University and Community College System of Nevada releases reports.

"This is just the beginning -- an attempt to start down the right path," Kirkpatrick said, noting that public comment, as well as the opinions of the five committee members, will be welcome at the meeting in the gymnasium.

The controversy stems from a March 9 drug raid by campus police who dressed in combat fatigues and stormed a dormitory -- an action that led to a five-month probe by the Nevada Division of Investigation.

In a voluminous report released last month, state investigators found that the officers failed to follow department policies and that UNLV policies were flawed.

In addition, the state report noted 18 bags of a white powdery substance believed to be opium were actually talcum powder, and only a small amount of marijuana and four Ecstasy tablets were recovered.

UNLV, which issued just a two-page press release on the police report, has come under pressure to release the document in its entirety.

The attorney for a 19-year-old UNLV student charged with two felony counts in the raid has demanded the report for his defense, and the Sun is seeking it under the Freedom of Information Act.

Last Thursday attorney John Moran Jr., acting on behalf of Graig Adler at Adler's arraignment before Justice of the Peace James Bixler, asked that the court order the university to produce the document.

Bixler set a preliminary hearing for 9 a.m. on Nov. 21. Moran said he would file a motion seeking an evidentiary hearing before the preliminary hearing, where he intended to compel either UNLV President Carol Harter or UNLV Police Chief Jose Elique to testify about the document.

He also said he would file a motion to suppress the search warrant used in the raid that resulted in the district attorney's office charging Adler with felony possession of marijuana and Ecstasy.

Moran said it was "simply amazing" that the report that was paid for by taxpayer money has not been released to the press, the public or his client.

"The problem we have with this is that the investigation started out to be a personnel matter," Kirkpatrick said, noting that the report has since taken on a life of its own. "If it weren't for the advice of counsel, I believe the report would have been released."

A DMV spokeswoman said the statute that prevents the release of the state report falls under the confidential records law, which reads in part that the state cannot release, "information in an employee's file ... which relates to his conduct, including any disciplinary action taken against him."

Gary Peck, director of the local branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, which also has demanded release of the document, said UNLV is using that law as a smoke screen.

Last week, Elique said he was doling out unspecified discipline to a number of officers who were involved in the March raid. Citing state confidentiality laws, he declined to release the names of the officers to be punished.