Police remain tight-lipped in arrest of Metro sergeant

Jen Lawson

Thursday, July 1, 2004 | 9:46 a.m.

Metro Police officials are saying little about a sergeant who was arrested Tuesday after a scuffle with fellow officers at a Henderson gas station, saying only that 36-year-old Lawrence Montero is the subject of parallel criminal and internal affairs investigations.

"It started with some communication with people inside the police department and it escalated to the situation with his arrest," said Deputy Chief Mike Ault, head of the department's professional standards division.

Ault declined to comment further, citing confidentiality rules relating to internal affairs probes.

Knowledgeable sources said Montero was taken to a state mental health facility for evaluation after he was released from the Clark County Detention Center.

Although arrest reports are public records, authorities refused to release the arrest report for Montero Wednesday because, they said, it's part of an ongoing investigation.

Court records are also public records, and they show that Montero, a Henderson resident, filed for divorce from Georgette, his wife of 13 years, on May 27, according to court records. They have two sons, ages 12 and 9, and a 5-year-old daughter.

The court records also include a motion that Montero filed Tuesday seeking a restraining order against his wife as well as custody of their children and child support. There was no additional information in the court file Wednesday regarding the restraining order or the custody dispute.

According to sources close to the investigation, the fight that led to Montero's arrest stemmed from a confrontation Montero had with another police officer about Montero's divorce. Montero, a Metro officer for 13 years, was off-duty at the time. He works out of the department's northeast area command.

Metro and Henderson officers had approached Montero at an automotive center late Tuesday afternoon to talk to him about his "communication with people inside the police department," as Ault put it, and Montero allegedly fled to a nearby Texaco station at Gibson and Sunset roads, where police said he resisted arrest and punched at least one police officer. Montero was shot with a Taser gun during the arrest.

He was booked into the jail on one count each of battery of a police officer and resisting arrest and was released after posting $4,000 bail, according to jail records.

Montero was being evaluated Wednesday afternoon at Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services at 6161 W. Charleston Blvd. and was scheduled to make his first appearance in court this morning, authorities said.

In 1997, when Montero was a SWAT officer, he was investigated by internal affairs for allegedly exchanging department ammunition for nutritional supplements, but the probe was dropped because authorities couldn't prove the allegations.