Thursday, Feb. 24, 2005 | 11:09 a.m.
After a Las Vegas man was charged with possessing drugs that had been put into his car by Metro Police, two of the officers allegedly tried to cover up the matter, and that has the Citizen Review Board taking the unusual step of calling for the firing of the officers.
The officer who placed the drugs in Mark A. Lilly's car said he did it as a training exercise for his police dog and forgot to retrieve the drugs, and what followed was a bungled chain of events that culminated with two officers giving false testimony at a court hearing.
Metro's internal affairs investigators found the officers guilty of neglect of duty, but the Citizen Review Board determined that the officers' actions were intentional.
"It was a screwup of circumstances, one screwup after the other," Andrea Beckman, executive director of the Citizen Review Board, said Wednesday. "I think the board was offended by this case, and they were concerned that we've got a lot of good officers and this makes them look bad."
What happened sounds more like a movie plot than an actual case.
It started on a night in July 2004 when Mark A. Lilly, who filed the complaint, allegedly approached some police officers -- not realizing they were officers -- at Main Street and Carson Avenue and asked if they wanted to buy some drugs from him, Beckman said.
Officers Kevin Collmar, Jeffrey Guyer, David Parker and Officer David Newton's police dog searched Lilly's car and found no real drugs, but they did find a substance that looked like drugs.
Selling or trying to sell fake drugs is a crime, so they arrested him.
Newton decided to turn the incident into a training exercise for his police dog, so he placed authentic drugs in Lilly's car and let the dog find them, Beckman said.
However, she said, Newton forgot to retrieve the drugs.
Lilly was taken to the detention center and his car was impounded. During an inventory search of his car, the drugs used as a training aid for Newton's dog were found and, as a result, an additional charge of possession of a controlled substance was filed against Lilly, said Deputy Chief Mike Ault, who oversees internal affairs, said.
When Newton realized what had happened, paperwork showing that Lilly shouldn't have been charged with that drug offense was filled out, but it wasn't sent to the district attorney's office as it should have been, Ault said. It was instead placed in a file.
Collmar and Parker were later subpoenaed to testify at Lilly's preliminary hearing. Beckman said the officers had time to speak up and say Lilly shouldn't be facing a charge of possession of a controlled substance, but Ault said they didn't.
"The officers knew this person should not be prosecuted for anything having to do with the narcotics being found in the vehicle," Ault said. "They went through the testimony process without disclosing that."
Lilly was bound over for trial. Guyer found out about the Collmar's and Parker's testimony, and a phone call was made to the district attorney's office. The charge was immediately dropped, authorities said. Lilly later pleaded guilty to the other charges.
The process of how "no charges" forms are handled has been changed so this doesn't happen again, Ault said.
"This kind of thing has never come up before," he said.
Lilly filed complaints with internal affairs and the Citizen Review Board shortly after his arrest.
After a months-long probe, internal affairs investigators handed down their findings earlier this month.
Collmar and Parker were found guilty of neglect of duty and violating the department's policy on court attendance and conduct, which says they must adequately prepare for their court appearances, Ault said.
Guyer was not found guilty of any wrongdoing.
"He's the good guy here," Beckman said.
Newton's conduct and any subsequent discipline was handled by his chain of command, not by internal affairs, because he apparently tried to rectify his mistake as soon as he realized it, police said.
Police would not say what, if any, disciplinary action was taken against Newton.
In a subsequent probe conducted Feb. 17 by the Citizen Review Board, members found that Metro did a thorough investigation but that they didn't go far enough.
Their actions went beyond neglect of duty, it was willful conduct, the panel's report noted.
On the findings sheet, the chairperson of the review board recommended Sheriff Bill Young should fire Collmar and Parker and suspend Newton without pay for a minimum of four weeks.
"We believe the officers are an embarrassment to the police force. They make good officers look bad," the chairperson wrote.
Ault said Young will take the board's recommendations into consideration when deciding what, if any, discipline will be meted out to the officers. The officers are currently appealing the internal affairs findings.
Beckman said she thought the board's recommendations are appropriate given the facts of the case.
"The board rarely makes specific recommendations," she said. "They were fairly outraged."
Lilly could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
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