Review board recommends officer be retrained

Keith Paul

Tuesday, April 9, 2002 | 11:13 a.m.

A Citizen Review Board panel ruled a Metro Police officer arrested a motorist last summer "based strictly on the complainant's race and the officer's bias" and recommended the officer be retrained.

The review board's panel voted 4-0 that Officer John Andrew S. Cook acted inappropriately. The panel disagreed with Metro's internal investigation, which cleared the officer, according to the ruling released Monday. The hearing was held March 29 and the ruling finalized Friday.

"The panel expressed concern that this officer is vulnerable to a reoccurrence of biased-based policing due to his cultural insensitivity and inadequate knowledge of the dynamics of stereotyping," the ruling states.

But Cook's attorney, John Dean Harper of the Police Protective Association, said there were legitimate reasons for the arrest. Once a motorist fails roadside sobriety tests, an arrest must be made, he said.

"I am deeply concerned by (the decision) because there is no evidence of bias," Harper said.

Charges against the motorist, Keith Harrison, were later dropped when a blood test detected no drugs or alcohol in his system. Harper pointed out the tests were only for alcohol and marijuana.

The panel recommended Cook, 27, an officer since January 1999, receive additional training on roadside tests to determine if a driver is under the influence of drugs, and cultural sensitivity.

Sheriff Jerry Keller will review the panel's findings and recommendation along with the internal investigation file on the matter and make a decision in the next few days, Undersheriff Richard Winget said. The board can only make recommendations as Keller has the final say on disciplining officers.

Harrison filed a complaint after his arrest on driving under the influence charges late on June 4 in front of his mother's house on North 20th Street. Cook pulled up behind Harrison for a traffic stop. The panel stated there was no way for Cook to know Harrison's ethnicity at the time of the stop as it was dark and the car's window were tinted.

The panel agreed Cook was justified in pulling Harrison over but acted unprofessionally when Harrison gave him an expired car insurance card. Cook said, "What's the deal," implying the card was fake, the ruling states.

Harrison then gave the officer a valid card and said he pulled over so the officer could pass him and he could back into his mother's driveway. Cook detected no odor of alcohol, but indicated Harrison had bloodshot, watery, glassy eyes and his pupils were dilated. Harrison was arrested after Cook and another officer, who came as backup, gave a series of roadside sobriety tests.

The panel stated in the decision that "bias was the basis for the officer's suspicions and under the same circumstances a white American male offering the same excuses for driving conduct would have been released without the roadside (sobriety testing) or other questions."

"We just want him to get more training," said Joe Lamarca, chairman of the hearing panel for the review board. "We're not asking that he be reprimanded or fired, but we feel this guy needs to go to some diversity training."

The board determined that allegations against the other officer, William Giblin, were unfounded.

The department has a policy against the use of race for the sole basis of police actions, but some members of the minority community have long complained of being singled out because of their race.

Assemblyman Wendell Williams, who authored a law for a racial profiling study, said this case is another example of the usefulness of the Citizen Review Board.

"Had the board not been in place, (Harrison) would have been left without any place to go," Williams, D-Las Vegas, said.

Metro, along with other departments in Clark County, Washoe County and the highway patrol, are in the fourth month of a yearlong study of traffic stops to determine if racial profiling is used. The Legislature passed the law last session requiring the study. Results of the study will be presented to the Legislature in 2003.

The 25-member review board began operating in October 2000 after years of political wrangling and public outcry. In February 2001, the board released its first decisions, clearing one officer and sustaining a complaint against another, but in both cases it pointed out shoddy internal investigations by police.

Metro officials at the time agreed with the board's assessment of the investigations.

The department had been reviewing internal affairs at the time and has since increased the number of detectives assigned to investigate allegations against officers.