County honors guard who stopped attacks

Judy Odierna

Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2002 | 9:29 a.m.

Security guard Steven Glenn, who came to the aid of two women when a man stabbed them in a social services office last week, was awarded a medal of honor by Clark County Commissioners on Tuesday.

The award is the county's top honor and had not been given out in more than two years.

"I just think it's wrong for a man to assault a woman," Glenn said as he accepted his award. "I think it's more wrong for a man to assault an older woman. But most importantly I wasn't thinking of any benefits to myself. I just knew it needed to stop right now."

Glenn was sitting in an office at the Clark County Social Services center in Henderson Dec. 10, just starting his lunch break, when he heard a scream.

It was his first day on the job.

Glenn, 32, said he ran out to the reception area and saw a man on top of administrative assistant Kathryn Atkinson, 56, court records show. He said the man was beating her.

Glenn said he pushed the man off her, and that's when he saw a bloody knife in the attacker's hand.

Also injured in the attack was office supervisor Susan Rhodes, 55.

"(Glenn) is a brave man," Commissioner Myrna Williams said. "A normal day at the office turned into a nightmare."

Glenn said he only had one regret about the incident.

"I couldn't knock the man out cold," he said. "Believe me, folks, I tried."

Michael Tracy McLaughlin, 32, is being held in the Henderson Detention Center, charged with three counts each of attempted murder and battery with a deadly weapon and one count of burglary. He is scheduled to be arraigned Dec. 19.

The office where the attack took place, 67 W. Lake Mead Drive, will not likely reopen, county spokesman Erik Pappa said.

Even before the stabbing, mold at the office had prompted social services officials to look for a new lease site in downtown Henderson, Pappa said.

In the meantime, clients are encouraged to go to the services center at 3900 Cambridge St., near the intersection of Maryland Parkway and Flamingo Road. They can also go to the main office at 1600 Pinto Lane, southwest of Martin Luther King Boulevard and Alta Drive.

Before closing, the Lake Mead office had seen a 41 percent increase from the previous year, Pappa said, handling about two dozen cases a day. Overall, social services casework increased to 15,000 cases this year, up about 20 percent from 2001, according to officials.