Police: Program helping curb gang-related violence in west Las Vegas

By Jackie Valley

Thursday, Oct. 20, 2011 | 8:37 p.m.

The empty playgrounds on beautiful spring days symbolized the currents of fear rippling through west Las Vegas neighborhoods in 2006. Parents were afraid to let their children outside.

Metro Police described the area as decaying and riddled with an “incredible” amount of gang violence. In a short span, stray bullets killed three innocent bystanders — a 12-year-old, a mother and another woman — during all-too-common drive-by shootings.

Countless other homicide victims were young men from the neighborhood, gunned down by rival gang members. Retaliatory shootings followed.

“You could predict it,” Capt. Larry Burns said. “Within an hour, within a day.”

The rampant violence in the area — bordered by Interstate 15 on the east, Rancho Drive to the west, Cheyenne Avenue to the north and U.S. 95 to the south — prompted police to form a different approach. As a result, Safe Village emerged as a community alliance determined to curb the violence.

Five years later, it’s being honored nationally as an example of excellent community policing by the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

“We have a saying around Metro that what is predictable is preventable,” said Burns, captain of Metro’s Bolden Area Command, which includes the targeted west Las Vegas neighborhood.

Safe Village began as a partnership between law enforcement and religious leaders in the area, which is home to the highest concentration of churches in Nevada, police said.

“The shootings and the homicides were symptoms of a community that had decayed or was challenged in terms of employment, educational opportunities and broken homes,” said Imam Mujahid Ramadan, a Safe Village leader. “We looked at it holistically and said ‘How do you transform a community?’”

The transformation involved rebuilding the neighborhood into a faith-based community, helping residents find employment and encouraging fathers to play active roles in their children’s lives, among other initiatives, Ramadan said.

The program has since expanded to include the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority and other government agencies and community organizations, Burns said. Thirty to forty people attend weekly Monday meetings, where they are currently focusing on how to prevent violence in areas such as the Sherman Gardens, Marble Manor and Villa Capri housing developments.

Since 2006, violent crime in west Las Vegas has steadily dropped, Burns said.

There have been nine homicides within Bolden Area Command so far this year, and police have made arrests in each case, Burns said. Last year, there were 15 homicides in the same time frame, resulting in five arrests.

Police credit Safe Village’s relationship with community members for the decrease in homicides and information leading to arrests.

“It means the community has a measure of confidence that when they see something and they say something that there’s not a penalty for that,” Burns said.

Kevin McMahill, a former Bolden Area Command captain who is now chief of patrol, said he intends to spread this type of policing throughout Metro’s jurisdiction. He recently took all area command captains to a weekly Safe Village meeting.

“I’m a converted true believer,” he said. “I saw it work, I saw it continue to work and it is just something truly fascinating to watch.”

Deputy Chief Gary Schofield, who was Bolden Area Command captain when the program began in 2006, will travel with Burns to Chicago to accept the Webber Seavy Award, named after the IACP’s first president and considered a top honor for community policing. Pastor Willie Cherry of the Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in west Las Vegas, who is a founding member of Safe Village, will accompany them.