Troy,

Thanks for your quick response and writing of the letters. I would also recommend sending copies to Rep. John Conyers (D MI) Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I have also sent copies to the 7 members of Congress who are West Point or Annapolis grads. I would also recommend that you send copies to your senators and representatives.

From what you read in the letters, you can see that we have an out of control police department. There has been no accountability whatsoever. I am attaching some stories from the local Las Vegas news today.

http://www.8newsnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=13082938
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/sep/01/2-metro-officers-charged-fatal-police-pursuit/
http://www.lvrj.com/news/two-metro-officers-charged-in-traffic-death-101998148.html

You may want to look at some of the comments as well attached to these articles. Some of the feeling is that the DA and the Sheriff are doing this now to take some of the heat off after the Yant debacle and before the Scott Inquest.

In May of this year, two officers, Ubbens and Carpenter, were in pursuit of a suspected drunk driver. They were ordered by their sergeant to break off the pursuit THREE times. They disregarded the order, and continued the pursuit without lights or sirens. As a result of their action, the suspected drunk driver, who turned out to be high on meth, was killed; an innocent driver was seriously injured; and 5 cars were wrecked. One of the drivers lied on his initial report, and later recanted. The officers were placed on paid administrative leave. Metro finally forwarded a recommendation for formal charges, several of which were misdemeanors, to the DA on Aug 3. The DA was reviewing the charges until he acted today. As a result, one of the officers was moved to unpaid leave and the other was left on paid leave. In another jurisdiction, I believe that they would be felony charges, but I am not a lawyer.

Earlier this year, an officer, James Manor, was responding to a 911 call which turned out to be bogus. It was at night, and the officer was traveling 109MPH, no typo, without lights and siren. Another driver, Calvin Darling, who had a few beers, turned into him, not realizing how fast he was going, and the officer was killed. The other driver was charged with DUI after he failed a field sobriety test, not surprising after being T-boned at that speed, and was later released after his blood alcohol came back as 0.038. The officer who was following Officer Manor initially reported that he(Manor) did have lights and siren on.

The system of checks and balances here is broken. This has been going on for as long as people can remember. I have lived in Las Vegas since the late 90's and it has gotten progressively worse. It reminds me in some ways of the total breakdown of the chain of command at Abu Grabe. After having 3 officers killed in accidents, the Sheriff instituted a new seat belt policy and speed policy. Ubbens and Carpenter happened after that new policy was implemented. The Sheriff is now using a campaign of stickers to remind officers to comply with the driving policies.

There seems to be a do whatever you want attitude with Metro, because there are no checks. The Coroner's Inquest is a joke, there have been 196 officer involved shootings since it began and 195 have been found justified or excusable and only one was ever found criminal, and in that case I don't believe that charges were ever filed. Metro makes the New Orleans PD look like angels.

In my opinion, one of the major flaws and the reason that this has gone on so long is that many of the victims came from a poorly educated, low income background and didn't realize what their rights were. The police departments and city and county governments would pay some hush money, and it would all go away. In the Manor case I mentioned above, Darling got a settlement of between $120,000 and $200,000 depending on the news source. If he had gone to a civil case, he could have gotten a lot more. I was one of the uncaring public until Erik Scott, and then I started digging, and I didn't have to dig hard, and frankly what I found was scary. That's when I felt that I had to do something and I knew who to write to and how to put together documents to get people's attention.

There have been only three of us, that I know about, from the Las Vegas Society who have attended the Memorial Service, and the Candlelight Vigil. Some of us sent letters to the DA, but the only one who got a response was Nate Hunterton, the society president who got a personal response from the DA, paraphrasing, great to hear from you, I remember your Dad and when you got appointed. I would not count on a lot a help from the local society. Anything I have to send out I have to send out through Nate. The AOG has not been enthusiastic in their willingness to help. I think they want to see the outcome of the inquest first.

If I can be of any further assistance, please feel free to contact me. I will add you to this list as I send things out. Please feel free to send my letters on to anybody that you can think of that could help, and please feel free to give copies to other people.

Richard