One’s a cop, the other has police union endorsement

By Abigail Goldman

Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009 | 2 a.m.

If being denied endorsement by the valley’s largest police union hurt Metro Capt. Stavros Anthony, the Las Vegas City Council candidate hides his wounds well.

Anthony, a 29-year Metro veteran, says he doesn’t know why the Police Protective Association is backing Glenn Trowbridge — and doesn’t want to guess.

Union leaders said Trowbridge has more relevant political experience, particularly in his role as vice chairman of the Las Vegas Planning Commission.

And they think Anthony has, on some occasions, made Metro look bad.

The union president, Chris Collins, put it this way: A couple of Anthony’s blunders left the public with a “negative taste.”

The first offense was in May 2007 when Anthony, who has been on the state higher education system’s Board of Regents since 2002, proposed, in the wake of the Virginia Tech shooting, to allow higher education employees to become reserve police officers — and let those reserve officers carry guns on campus. The police union was strongly against that proposal.

Later that year, Anthony flashed his badge to get a free seating upgrade on a flight to Montreal for a police association conference. Soliciting free items or upgrades is a violation of Metro policy, so Anthony was “counseled” by the department.

Anthony was asked “point blank” about both issues during his Jan. 15 interview with union leaders, Collins said.

Clearly his answers didn’t satisfy. Maybe it’s because the stakes are high.

“The bottom line, for me, is that past officers in elected positions haven’t exactly left police in a stellar position,” Collins said.

There’s Lance Malone, the Metro cop turned Clark County commissioner turned corrupt, convicted lobbyist.

Then there’s Michael McDonald, the Metro cop turned Las Vegas city councilman whose name floated around in the federal corruption investigation that landed four county commissioners and his friend, former topless club owner Michael Galardi, in prison.

Collins does, however, emphasize that it was Trowbridge’s experience that swayed the union board. And the vote was close; it wasn’t a landslide for or against either candidate, Collins said, though he did not produce the numbers.

The police union could donate a lot of money to the Trowbridge campaign, if members “felt like it was their hill to die for,” which Collins says they don’t.

Whether the union will donate to the campaign, and if so, how much, hasn’t been decided, Collins said.

But privately, union members bring up Anthony’s mistakes first and his qualifications second.

So it really doesn’t matter when the captain acknowledges that flashing his badge for more legroom and better service was a mistake that will never be repeated. And it doesn’t matter that Anthony’s idea for arming university employees was much more nuanced than the media made it out to be. And it doesn’t matter that Anthony secured endorsements from the union representing Metro’s higher rank — the Police Managers & Supervisors Association, as well as the Nevada State Law Enforcement Officers Association and the Clark County Prosecutors Association.

It’s not easy to deny a fellow cop your endorsement, Collins said, but being on Metro’s payroll doesn’t mean a rubber-stamp approval either. A badge — flashed for a flight attendant or a police union board — isn’t enough.

“Quite honestly,” Collins said, “our people are pretty hard on each other professionally.”