Board dismisses five complaints

Keith Paul

Wednesday, May 30, 2001 | 10:53 a.m.

The Citizen Review Board last week dismissed five complaints against Metro Police officers, noting sufficient merit did not exist to warrant a full hearing panel review.

The board's screening panel dismissed a use-of-force complaint filed by attorney Timothy Titolo against two officers who arrested him in November. The panel, in dismissing the allegations, stated the complaint "lacks merit to warrant a hearing panel."

Titolo was charged after a confrontation with two officers who were investigating a claim made by a woman who said she was hit. An officer, in an arrest report, claimed Titolo pushed him when the officer attempted to speak with his wife. Titolo faces a July preliminary hearing in Las Vegas Justice Court on battery of a police officer and other charges.

The panel also dismissed a complaint of racial profiling and an illegal search after Metro internal affairs again investigated the case.

A man claimed he was stopped in front of Valley High School in August because he is black. He also complained the officers asked if they could search his car and, when he said no, they searched it anyway.

Internal affairs detectives interviewed several officers who were in the area at the time, but no officer claimed to be involved or remembered the incident. The complainant was unable to identify the officers he claimed stopped him from a group of photos, Andrea Beckman, the board's executive director, said.

The screening panel -- composed of five board members who determine whether a complaint proceeds to a hearing panel -- also dismissed two complaints by Clark County jail inmates made against corrections officers as having no merit, as well as allegations of conduct unbecoming an officer and discourtesy against an officer for an incident in December, according to the board's findings.