Editorial: Improving relations between FBI, police

Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2002 | 8:55 a.m.

Grant Ashley, the head of the FBI's Las Vegas office, is getting a promotion. Ashley will go to Washington, D.C., and run the headquarters' criminal investigation division. The division investigates bank robberies, organized crime, kidnappings and illegal drug sales, all crimes that require cooperation between federal and local law enforcement if they're to be solved quickly.

The FBI occasionally has had a reputation in Las Vegas and elsewhere in the nation of ignoring local law enforcement, an attitude that not only breeds resentment by local police, but also hampers the ultimate goal of all law enforcement agencies -- apprehending criminals. But Ashley, who has been in Las Vegas for three years, has forged a good-working relationship with Sheriff Jerry Keller, a relationship that, equally as important, usually has filtered down to FBI agents and Metro Police officers. The cooperation was in evidence as the FBI and Metro Police worked together to track down information that several of the Sept. 11 terrorist hijackers had spent some time in Las Vegas.

Given Ashley's success here, it's not surprising that for the past month he has been on temporary assignment at the bureau's headquarters, coming up with a program to improve the sharing of information with local law enforcement officials and elected officials, something that also will be essential as he takes on his new job.