LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – “Y’all do this to white people?,” a man asks as he was being detained. “Yeah. I do this to everybody bro,” a Metro officer responds.
That exchange caught on an officer’s body camera, part of the release of evidence shown to a grand jury and obtained by FOX5.
The Metro sergeant accused of unlawfully arresting people on the Strip is facing new charges as of Wednesday. The home of Sergeant Kevin Menon near Decatur Blvd. and Gowan Road was searched after he was arrested on child pornography charges.
Sergeant Menon is in the Clark County Detention Center awaiting a court hearing Thursday morning.
FOX5 obtained more than a dozen videos shown to a grand jury after his first arrest, looking into the sergeant and the officers he worked with as they arrested people mostly in and around Strip casinos.
In May, Menon was placed on leave after Metro says he ordered the arrests without probable cause. In every case shown to the grand jury, the person detained was a black man or man of color.
“Unprovoked flight. Unprovoked flight. They saw us and started walking away really quick,” an officer explains as to why four men were being detained inside the Cosmopolitan.
On May 5, 2024, Menon is accused of shoving a fellow officer in the chest, who was making a legal arrest, after he didn’t recognize Menon in plain clothes.
“What’s up man,” an officer asks Sgt. Menon as he approaches him.
“I’m the (expletive) sergeant you idiot,” Sgt. Menon responds.
“Are you? I don’t know who you are,” the officer replies.
In another video where a man is being detained, he is recorded on an officer’s body camera saying about Sgt. Menon, “He bumped into me and then you guys were right behind me.”
“I didn’t see (expletive),” the officer responds.
“Like it was a set up…It is on your camera,” the man contends.
Video of the incident shows Menon shoulder checking the man on a pedestrian bridge. Two uniformed Metro officers follow and detain him.
In a text exchange presented to the grand jury, one officer wrote “hunting pc still” and Menon wrote “shoulder check someone and smash.”
Another text exchange:
“Come arrest me in a sec. Soon as I make contact with them. Then detain and identify them…Just explain the guy that was detained (me) was committing fraud with fake money, and due to my interaction with them, they are being contacted. Simple.”
That is exactly what appears to play out in security video from a casino. Sgt. Menon approached two men and started a conversation. Fellow officers immediately taking him away and then approach the men. The uniformed officers then detained the men and searched their personal belongings.
In another video that begins with no audio, a man is sitting in a chair inside a casino when he is approached by an officer and follows him out into a hallway. Though it appears no crime has been committed, he begins to question him.
“Where are you staying at the LINQ? That’s not a bad spot. I stayed there before I moved there. Do you mind if I check your ID, make sure you don’t got no warrants or nothing?… I am just asking, make sure you don’t got no warrants,” the officer asks.
Menon has been charged with a dozen counts, including multiple counts of oppression under color of office and subornation of perjury (Menon is accused of telling officers to lie on their reports about these incidents).
It is unclear if other officers involved in the problematic arrests also face discipline.
It is important to note, Menon was arrested by Metro the same month as most of these reported incidents back in May and taken off the streets.
Menon will be in court Thursday morning to face the two counts of possession of child pornography. Menon worked with Metro since 2014.
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