Police unit to occupy convention center

Monday, Aug. 23, 2004 | 10:34 a.m.

Metro Police has moved its Tourism Safety Unit to the Las Vegas Convention Center from downtown's City Hall to provide quicker response time to the tourism district, Metro officials said.

The office is staffed by 14 detectives, two sergeants and two support personnel who will remain in charge of investigating crimes involving tourists across the Las Vegas Valley as well as outlying areas such as Jean and Primm.

The convention center move isn't the result of terrorism concerns, said Metro Lt. Robert Duvall, who oversees Metro's Firearms unit and Tourism Safety unit.

"This is simply good math," Duvall said. "With the shortage of personnel we have ... the best thing we can do is decrease any kind of response time. The overwhelming majority of our investigations are on the Strip and we're walking distance from that (area) now. And we're still only five minutes from downtown."

The convention center office for the Tourism Safety Unit was previously staffed by a Metro bike patrol unit that still patrols the convention center but is now based out of an area command center on the Strip, Duvall said. In recent years the office was staffed by a few Tourist Safety Unit staffers, he said.