Police will pay $1.22 million

Jen Lawson

Monday, Nov. 25, 2002 | 11:21 a.m.

The Metro Police Fiscal Affairs Committee agreed this morning to pay $1.22 million in taxpayer money to settle two civil rights lawsuits against Metro Police.

Juan Berry and James Suggs are to receive $900,000. They had filed a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging they were wrongfully charged with a felony and falsely arrested after a bar brawl with three off-duty Metro cops in 1997.

"The conduct of some members of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department after the incident and during the investigation was certainly deficient," Sheriff Jerry Keller told committee members Peter Thomas, Las Vegas Councilman Gary Reese, Councilwoman Lynette Boggs McDonald and Clark County Commissioner Erin Kenny during the meeting.

Berry, 31, a corrections officer from Minnesota, and his 32-year-old cousin, Suggs, who works for a pharmaceutical company in Kentucky, accused Metro officers of fabricating charges in retaliation for a fight May 23, 1997, with several off-duty cops at the now-defunct Drink nightclub.

Officers who responded to the nightclub to break up the fight refused to arrest Berry, citing a lack of evidence. Police filed charges against Berry several weeks later, charging him with battery with a deadly weapon.

The charges were later dropped, but a detective re-entered Berry's name in a database that could have had him arrested on the same charges.

One of the officers received a written reprimand as a result of the incident, but it's unclear if the others were disciplined.

The settlement will end the lawsuit against Metro, filed in 1999.

Berry's attorney, Donald Campbell, couldn't be reached for comment this morning.

Boggs McDonald said all public officials must conduct themselves professionally at all times, even while off-duty.

"This has been an aberration, a very odd occurrence and one that is not indicative of the fine legacy of Sheriff Keller," she said.

The fiscal affairs committee also agreed to pay $325,000 to 3-year-old Nadine Sarah Strouse to settle a lawsuit alleging that an officer shot and killed her father, John Perrin, in 1999.

It was a partial settlement. Metro wasn't able to work out a settlement with Perrin's mother, Connie, and her son's estate, and will go to trial Dec. 9.

Perrin was bouncing a basketball in a desert area near Rainbow Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue when Officer Bruce Gentner stopped him, believing he had been involved in a drug transaction a few minutes earlier.

Gentner told a coroner's inquest that he thought Perrin resembled a man sought in connection with a nearby October burglary.

Gentner said Perrin, who was unarmed, allegedly kept digging in his waistband, despite the officer's warning to show his hands. Perrin pulled out what Gentner said he thought was a pistol. The officer said he feared for his life and fired 14 shots at Perrin, hitting him six times.

A coroner's jury ruled the death was justifiable.

Thomas Dillard Jr., an attorney who represents Metro, said the department isn't admitting guilt by settling the suit.