LAS
VEGAS—A Las Vegas police officer has been fired for policy violations for
fatally shooting an unarmed Gulf War veteran in a vehicle in a chaotic scene in
December 2011 that sparked calls for reforms in departmental use-of-force
policies.
Jesus
Arevalo (hay-SOOS' uh-REV'-ah-loh) was dismissed after Clark County Sheriff
Doug Gillespie upheld findings by an in-house review panel that Arevalo
"lacked the ability to make sound decisions in situations routinely faced
by police officers," a department statement said Wednesday.
Arevalo,
36, a Las Vegas police officer for more than 11 years, had been on paid leave
for the 22 months since the shooting death of Stanley Gibson.
His
dismissal Tuesday was believed to be a first for the department—at least since
the Las Vegas police and Clark County sheriff departments merged 40 years ago.
Gillespie has said he couldn't recall another officer ever being fired for an
on-duty shooting.
The
shooting spurred calls by the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada and
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for a federal
Justice Department investigation. Instead, officials from the federal Community
Oriented Policing Services program conducted a review of departmental
use-of-force policies.
A COPS
official last month credited Las Vegas police with upgrading training, keeping
better track of how and when officers use deadly force, and instituting a pilot
program to put cameras on the uniforms of some officers.
Chris
Collins, executive director of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association,
declined Wednesday to comment on Arevalo's dismissal.
Gibson's
widow, Rondha Gibson, didn't immediately respond to a message through a
spokesman.
Her
lawyer in a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the department said
Arevalo's dismissal for policy violations was justified, but wouldn't change
the lawsuit asking a judge to address police supervisory mistakes and poor
planning.
"It
is what we were hoping would occur, unfortunately it was for different issues
from the ones involved in our case," attorney Cal Potter told The
Associated Press. "It was all just a recipe for disaster, the way they
handled it."
Gibson
remained locked in his car for more than an hour at a northwest Las Vegas
apartment complex, with his car pinned between two police cruisers as officers
with weapons drawn commanded him to surrender. Gibson's spinning tires
generated billows of acrid blue smoke before Arevalo opened fire with an
assault-style rifle.
A grand
jury refused to indict officers in the case, and Clark County District Attorney
Steve Wolfson determined in April that mistakes were made, but no criminal
charges would be filed against Arevalo.
The DA
issued a report saying Arevalo thought he was shooting in self-defense when he
heard another officer fire a beanbag shotgun to break a side window of Gibson's
vehicle. Police said they didn't know Gibson was unarmed, and had planned to
inject pepper spray through the space to force him to surrender.
Gibson,
who suffered from severe anxiety and depression, had shown signs of mental
distress in the 36 hours before the fatal encounter. He was jailed briefly on a
resisting police charge, found wandering in a street, taken to a Las Vegas
hospital for a psychiatric evaluation and released with instructions to check
back two days later.
Rondha
Gibson said he may have become disoriented driving home.
He was
shot in an apartment complex near where they used to live.
In
September, Community Oriented Policing Services said the Las Vegas Metropolitan
Police Department had addressed or completed all but nine of 80 reforms called
for in a report the agency made public almost a year ago. A final COPS report
is expected next year.
After
peaking at 25 shootings in 2010, Las Vegas police were involved in 17
officer-involved shootings in 2011 and 11 in 2012, including four fatal cases.
