'Pay up and don't ask'
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED AUG. 6, 2001
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
'Pay up and don't ask'
Former North Las Vegas police officer Dave Acosta was one of eight cops responding to a report of "shots fired" in the 3200 block of Soledad Way -- near Pecos Road and Carey Avenue -- on March 10, 2000
Officers spotted one man in a front yard; two other suspects emerged from the rear. All were ordered to lie on the ground.
According to Officer Acosta's statement to internal affairs investigators, since obtained by the Review-Journal, two suspects were easily take into custody, but officers were having trouble with the third suspect, Celso Paz-Lopez, 22.
Officer Acosta leaned down so close to the suspect Paz-Lopez that the short barrel of his fully-automatic, MP-5 submachine gun fell within the suspect's reach. Paz-Lopez, pinned face-down on the ground by two other cops, managed to "hook" his right wrist or hand onto the MP-5's barrel, Officer Acosta testified.
"This subject ... now controlled the barrel of my MP-5," Acosta said in his statement to internal affairs. In response, Officer Acosta fired his weapon, two 9mm rounds entering the unarmed suspect's buttocks and hip.
Paz-Lopez's attorney says his client was obliged to use a colostomy bag for months after being shot. An internal police department memorandum obtained by the Review-Journal indicates the shooting of Mr. Paz-Lopez was found to be "unjustified," though the formal finding of the police internal review board has never been made public.
Now, the North Las Vegas City Council is considering taking their attorney's advice and paying $500,000 to the injured Celso Paz-Lopez.
"It was decided that the city should settle because of the possibility of a much larger jury verdict if it were to go to trial," explained North Las Vegas spokeswoman Brenda Johnson, who hastened to add, somewhat ridiculously, "This is no admission of guilt."
"It's been a long, drawn-out negotiation, and we've known for some time there'd be a settlement," says North Las Vegas Mayor Michael Montandon. "Half a million is a big number, no question. My personal philosophy is that a settlement is a beginning and you use it as a learning experience. ... The bigger the settlement, the bigger the learning experience."
It's easy to wax philosophical when you're spending someone else's money, of course -- taxpayer money. One wonders how philosophical Mr. Montandon and the other members of the council would be if the loot were coming out of their own pockets.
As for that "learning experience," it sounds very fine. But what has the public been able to learn about the results of the internal investigation -- the better to determine whether North Las Vegas Police have really "learned any lessons" about how best to deploy the officers with the German submachine guns ... the same full-auto weapon the BATF employed to shoot up that Seventh Day Adventist church down in Waco a few years back?
Nothing at all. Police officials, the mayor, and the city's official spokeswoman all contend they can't say a word about the shooting investigation, because it's ... aw, you already guessed ... a "personnel matter."
When Mr. Jefferson and his associates put their "lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor" on the line to launch a desperate and apparently hopeless war against the British crown, what was their justification?
Mr. Jefferson detailed "the long Train of Abuses and Usurpations ... evincing a Design" to reduce Americans to "absolute Despotism."
Among other things, King George had "kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies. ..." He had "given his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation ... for protecting them by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States."
No, Mr. Paz Lopez wasn't killed. But the armed troops with the military-style full-automatic submachine guns will continue to patrol the city's streets -- close enough to a "standing army" as makes no difference -- and rather than see any public accounting, the officers will merely be shifted to some other jurisdiction (Officer Acosta has subsequently been hired in a similar capacity in King County, Washington state) after a "mock Trial" -- all a "personnel matter," you understand -- designed to "protect them from any Punishment."
Would a "civilian" be free to quit his job and "move on," without so much as a public hearing, if he'd accidentally and unjustifiably put two rounds into a cop?
This is dangerous. Out there on the streets, the police are outmanned. They depend on the continued support of a public that has to know there will be an accounting, should the wrong person get shot. This kind of ongoing secrecy can only continue to erode that vital base of public support.
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $72 to Privacy Alert, 561 Keystone Ave., Suite 684, Reno, NV 89503 -- or dialing 775-348-8591. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at 1-800-244-2224, or via web site www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.
Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com
"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken
