Use-of-force board clears Metro officer

Keith Paul

Thursday, June 21, 2001 | 10:48 a.m.

Metro Police's use-of-force board ruled Wednesday night an officer acted within department guidelines when he shot and killed a man who had hit the officer with a shotgun blast in April.

A Clark County coroner's inquest jury reached a similar conclusion in the shooting earlier this month, when it need only seven minutes to come back with the ruling that Officer Keith Borders, 34, was justified in shooting Donald Charles Mettinger, 49, on April 28.

The seven-member Metro use-of-force board Wednesday night unanimously cleared Borders, a Metro officer for two years, of any wrongdoing when he fired at Mettinger during a gunfight at the end of a brief standoff at a home in the 5800 block of West Desert Inn Road, Deputy Chief Ray Flynn said.

"He was exonerated. He conformed to department policy," Flynn said.

A woman called from the Desert Inn Road house about a family dispute with Mettinger and said the man was drunk. While the woman was speaking, the phone went dead. Mettinger called 911 from the house a short time later and made threats aimed at any officer who came to the house, police said.

Officers went to the home and found the man in the back yard. Police said the man started shooting at them, then went into the house. The woman was able to escape from the house and ran to Borders.

Mettinger left the house armed with a shotgun and two handguns and fired the shotgun at Borders, police said. Borders was hit in the head with some of the pellets, but when he was treated at the hospital it was found that none penetrated his skull.

Metro's use-of-force board, made up of four citizens and three officers, reviews officers' actions when someone is killed or seriously hurt by an officer or whenever an officer fires a gun at a person. The board determines if the officers acted within department guidelines.

The board has reviewed seven cases this year and has cleared the officers in each instance. Last year the board ruled in several shootings that officers violated the department's guidelines for use of force, prompting Sheriff Jerry Keller to order all officers to take a training course.