Columnist Jeff German: Bizarre behavior a sign of the times

Friday, Feb. 21, 2003 | 4:29 a.m.

IF YOU NEEDED proof that things are getting weird on the streets, all you had to do was read the newspapers last week.

We seemed to have more than our share of disturbing acts.

A 98-year-old woman was beaten and robbed at her home. A jaywalker was run over not once, but twice, by two separate drivers who fled the scene. A man who robbed a sandwich shop was in turn robbed of the loot after he bragged about the heist to four acquaintances.

A woman in a group of rowdy friends fell into the street and was hit and killed by a Citzens Area Transit bus -- and instead of coming to her aid, her friends ran away before police arrived.

And then there were Beau and Monique Maestas, the two teen siblings charged in the brutal slaying of 3-year-old Kristyanna Cowan, laughing and kissing each other in court as if they didn't have a care in the world.

One bright spot was the return of a $40,000 LeRoy Neiman painting stolen from an art gallery at the Fashion Show mall. The gallery received the painting anonymously in the mail.

A thief with a conscience? Probably not. With all of the national and worldwide attention the case got, the crook must have figured it would be too difficult to fence the Neiman. Apparently there was at least one person acting rationally.

Richard McCorkle, chairman of UNLV's criminology department, says it's not surprising to see such bizarre incidents during unsettling times like these.

"It's very difficult right now for people to have any sense of order or predictability in their lives," McCorkle says. "When society's norms are broken down, you find increases in crime and strange behavior."

Look what's happening around us. We're facing daily threats of terrorism and are preparing to go to war with Iraq. The economy is sluggish and our financial future is uncertain while our 401(k)s go down the tubes with the stock market. Oh, and gas prices are rising faster than a Megabucks jackpot.

People are angry, frightened and confused.

Is the threat of terrorism really imminent? If we go to war with Iraq, what will it do to tourism in Las Vegas? And how will the governor's $1 billion tax plan affect our shrinking pocketbooks?

We can expect to see more strange behavior on the streets in the future -- until we get more leadership and less rhetoric from our elected leaders.

Something else is out of whack here.

Convention boss Manny Cortez just got a 5.4 percent pay raise, upping his salary to $234,000 to promote Las Vegas, which by virtue of its reputation promotes itself.

But Sheriff Bill Young, who runs a 4,282-member police force, earns only $84,000.

A move is afoot at the Legislature to increase the sheriff's salary, and frankly a boost is in order.

If we can't attract quality people to this job, we might have to pay Cortez $500,000 a year to promote Las Vegas in the shadow of a skyrocketing crime rate.

Amid the nightclub disasters in Rhode Island and Chicago last week, it was nice to see the FBI-led raid into alleged hidden mob ownership at the Crazy Horse Too come off without any injuries.

Jerry Hanford, supervisor of the FBI's organized crime squad in Las Vegas, says a lot of planning went into the early morning search to ensure that it ran smoothly. About 150 people were in the club at the time.

"It's not like we get a bunch of people together one day and say, 'Hey, let's go to the Crazy Horse,' " Hanford explains. "We have experts who do nothing but study how to approach these kinds of situations."

You could tell FBI agents were serious about determining whether Crazy Horse Too owner Rick Rizzolo has any underworld partners.

The court-authorized search warrant not only allowed agents to go after the paper trial, but also any photos of Rizzolo and his employees with known mobsters.