Vin Suprynowicz

I called Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie’s office Nov. 1, looking for the official report on the Sept. 15 traffic accident involving Metro jail guard Victor Hunter, who died of a massive heart attack a block and a half from the jail (per the county coroner’s office), after reportedly being given a shot and told to drive home after he’d displayed every classic symptom of a heart attack on the job.

(His sergeant told the widow that Victor’s on-duty attack would show up on surveillance video at the jail, possibly the most videotaped building in the county. The head of the local police union also told me the video would be all-important. Let’s see how good you are — does Metro now claim there’s no more usable video of that event then there was of the Costco shooting of Army veteran Erik Scott on July 9?)

The report I was seeking says the infirmary nurse, retained by the contractor Naphcare to tend to the jail’s inmates, gave Corrections Officer Hunter a shot of Phenergan and sent him home, according to several people who have seen said report.

The sheriff’s office transferred me to “Public Information Officer” Bill Cassell, who told me to get the report I’d have to hie myself down to the records office at the department’s new “Police Plaza” headquarters on Martin Luther King Boulevard.

There, they’d pull the report, “redact it,” and send it to him, at which point he’d send it to me, he said.

“What will they redact?” I asked.

“Personal information,” Mr. Cassell said.

I went down to the new records office. On the front door is a picture of a handgun with a slash through it, beneath which it says, in large block letters, “NO WEAPONS.” I went in and was issued a number by the large woman behind the glass. I then sat and waited in the waiting room for about half an hour for my number to be called. Fortunately, I’d brought a book.

The numbers on the little slips of paper aren’t in a single sequence. That is to say, if your number is R-239, and the last number called was R-237, you might think you’re behind only whoever holds slip R-238. Not so. Before R-238 gets called, they may call G-722 and N-101.

While I and about a dozen other people waited, a young police officer came in. He was wearing a T-shirt but carried his badge on a cord around his neck. He was also carrying a black Glock handgun holstered on his right hip, and a yellow hand weapon on his left hip — probably a Taser.

Perhaps Two-Gun Tommy didn’t see the “NO WEAPONS” sign, which is at eye level on the door he came through. Perhaps the large woman handing him his numbered slip didn’t notice he was armed, reminding him to go back out and leave his pieces in his vehicle. Or perhaps the sign really means “Officers of the state shall go armed at all times, but peasants dare not bear arms in our exalted presence, no matter what the Second Amendment says, and what are you going to do about it?”

The cop didn’t even have time to sit down before they called his number. While the rest of us peasants continued to wait.

Finally I was called to a window, where I asked for accident report LVMPD-110915-4568, a public document.

The young clerk asked if I was a member of the family. Nope. She asked if I was from an attorney’s office. Nope. She seemed confused, asking why then I would want such a document.

“It’s a public document and I want a copy,” I said, judging no more reason was necessary under the state open records law.

This puzzled young lady had apparently never encountered such a situation before. “What specific information are you looking for in the report?” she asked.

“The part where it discusses his medical treatment at the jail before they put him in his car and sent him home that night,” I said. That section is about 35 pages long “And we may want to compare it with the version in the possession of the widow, so I’d appreciate getting the whole report.”

The clerk said she could see the portion of the report I was talking about, on her screen, but that she couldn’t release it to me, since that wasn’t “the public part of the document.”

“The whole incident report is a public record,” I replied. “They all are.”

The clerk asked for my name and went to see her supervisor. She came back and said she couldn’t release the 35-page “supplemental report” of this public document to me, because she didn’t have special permission from Bill Cassell. And because they’d kept me waiting for half an hour it was now past 5 p.m., and they couldn’t reach Bill Cassell. All they could sell me for $9 was a four-page “initial report” giving makes and models of the vehicles, and the names of the two drivers, with three added blank pages attached.

I bought the report. At the bottom it says “On scene report. … See Accident Investigation Supplement.”

But I can’t see the supplement, of course; they wouldn’t let me.

At the bottom the form is stamped in red “Secondary Dissemination of any kind is Prohibited and could subject the offender to Criminal and Civil Liability.”

But that’s not true. For example, the small section of the report I was allowed to buy says Mr. Hunter was driving a 1995 Honda Accord, which is now being held hostage by Ewing Brothers Towing. There. I just committed “secondary dissemination.” Please tell me what statute I’ve just violated, and when I should expect to be arrested.

The next day, the editor of the newspaper sent a formal letter to the sheriff, requesting that document under the Nevada Open Records law. On Thursday a spokesman in Metro’s “legal” department (which makes you wonder what all the other departments are) said it would be “several days” before they could get a lawyer to review this public document, prepared by “public servants” doing the public’s business with taxpayer funds, and decide whether they’re going to release it.

How many people, in recent years, have paid Metro $9 for an accident report, believing what they got was the entire public document, without even knowing to ask for the “Supplement Report”?

What is Metro covering up? Since they’re self-insured for workers’ comp, why don’t they just OK the widow Noreta Hunter’s worker’s compensation claim for her husband’s death? Why don’t they acknowledge Victor’s death was job related, allowing the family to seek federal benefits under the Bureau of Justice Assistance Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Program?

Why didn’t Victor Hunter get an honors funeral, which only costs the department about $5,000, and which is commonly granted even to officers who die in self-inflicted accidents? If it’s the cost, they could file a “subrogation” claim to recover those costs from Naphcare. Couldn’t they?

What’s going on, here?