‘The media got smart:’ Las Vegas Metro police admits to asking justice court to withhold public records

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) – The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department violated an agreement it made in court to release documents to a news outlet and admits to working with the city’s justice court to determine, in some cases, which public records Metro wants the court to release to the media, the 8 News Now Investigators have learned.

KLAS-TV, the official broadcast home of 8 News Now and 8NewsNow.com, requested a police report with regard to an attempted murder that appeared on Metro’s logs from July 7. Metro, whose robust public information and records offices include a bureaucratic hierarchy of uniformed personnel, civilians and attorneys, denied that request. In doing so, Metro offered its standard three-page boilerplate denial.

The reporter working the story, the Edward R. Murrow and Emmy-award-winning 8 News Now Investigator David Charns, then asked the Las Vegas Justice Court for the arrest report under the belief that once the document was part of the court’s file, it was up to the court to determine whether to release it to the media. The Justice Court judge assigned to the file, Nancy Bernstein, held a hearing on July 16 to weigh Charns’ motion to release the document with Metro’s desire to block it…

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