The Clark County School District officer’s act drew comparisons to the 2020 police killing of George Floyd, calls for his firing and an ACLU of Nevada lawsuit.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — School officials in Las Vegas have released police reports and body camera footage under court order showing
Elfberg said in his report he grabbed the teen and pushed him against a fence, but “he attempted again to remove himself from my grasp, so I then spun him around and took him down to the ground.”
During a news conference, Haseebullah, ACLU attorney Christopher Peterson and NAACP Las Vegas President Quentin Savwoir said it appeared Elfberg was annoyed that the police activity was being recorded.
Haseebullah called Elfberg “a rowdy police officer” who initiated the incident by “jumping out of his vehicle to approach students who looked at him in a way he didn’t like.” He called for Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson to investigate and charge officers with wrongdoing.
“What you see is an officer engaged in misconduct,” Haseebullah said.
Wolfson responded that police conduct investigations and collect evidence, not his office, and that he has prosecuted officers from police agencies throughout the county for various crimes. He said he had no filing seeking prosecution in the Durango High School case.
“I’m not afraid to file a charge in an appropriate circumstance, if and when there is sufficient evidence,” he said.
Peterson emphasized that observers have a constitutional right to “film, criticize and question officers” and noted that video showed Elfberg threatening to use pepper spray on bystanders who “bravely stood their ground on a public sidewalk facing threats of retaliation.”
Later, Elfberg could be heard on his body camera telling a student, “I don’t mind if you record, dude. What I mind is everyone inching up on us.”
Elfberg’s attorney, Levine said the bodycam video “actually shows that Lt. Elfberg defused what could have been a very volatile and dangerous situation for both the officers and the involved students.”
“This case highlights the dangers of jumping to a wrong conclusion based upon snippets of video viewed out of context,” Levine said in his statement. The attorney also represents the school district’s police union.
A 200-person police department covers Clark County schools, the fifth-largest district in the U.S. with more than 315,000 students at more than 350 campuses. District police have the authority to make arrests and issue traffic citations on and off campus.
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