Finding the line Unraveling a difficult charge of racism within the Metro Police Department

More than a year ago, an angry man took to Facebook and asked whether a race war was needed to cleanse America and repair its moral values.

Nothing about his comments was unique or noteworthy, especially on the Internet, where hatred and ignorance fester on message boards like cancer.

Except this man was a Las Vegas police officer, sworn to protect and serve everyone.

“Let’s just get this over! Race war, Civil, Revolution? Bring it! I’m about as fed up as a man (American, Christian, White, Heterosexual) can get!” Metro Detective Bobby Kinch wrote in one of several posts obtained by The Sunday.

Kinch’s posts shocked and offended many of his fellow officers, who viewed them as unfiltered public expressions of racism. But what really angered officers about Kinch’s behavior — which eventually prompted an investigation by the Secret Service into threats against the president — was that Metro’s leadership did nothing about it.

After a long internal investigation and a months-long suspension, Kinch is back working for Metro after a slap on the wrist, continuing to investigate cases.

The saga of what happened after the Facebook post touches on human tragedy, public safety and the challenges of knowing what is in a person’s heart versus what spews from his fingertips at a keyboard.

It also illustrates the difficulty police departments face as they struggle to monitor their own staffs, deal with the public transparently and create an internal culture where problems can be addressed without bias. These things matter when you’re talking about people who carry guns, interact with the public in ways that require snap judgment and find themselves in potentially dangerous situations.

The Sunday spoke to multiple officers with knowledge of the Kinch story, some of whom were upset about how the department handled its investigation. All of the officers asked to remain anonymous because they feared retribution by Metro’s administration for talking to the media without permission from their bosses.

Kinch, however, isn’t afraid of talking. He defended his posts, claiming his comments weren’t intended to be racist. They were taken out of context by officers targeting him because of department politics and his outspoken nature, he said.

“They have an ax to grind,” he told The Sunday.

The strange tale of Detective Kinch unfolded over almost a year. It began as many unfortunate stories do — with a rambling post on social media.

“It’s obviously coming to a boiling point! I say “F*** IT”! I’m ready now! Sooner or later, I would say sooner than later!” Kinch wrote (spelling out the profanity in his post).

“Thought I could make a difference, thought it would get better! See the morale fabric of this Country get so trampled I wanna call it! GAME ON! I think we need a cleansing! Just me? What say you?”

Kinch, a 21-year veteran at Metro, posted the comments around Christmas 2013. The Sunday obtained several screenshots of Kinch’s Facebook posts, taken by officers who wanted to preserve them. The posts have since been shared widely across the department.

The detective often was intentionally provocative on Facebook, sometimes reverently arguing his position for days. A frequent target of Kinch’s outrage was President Barack Obama.

Kinch’s posts on this day were particularly volatile — so much so, one officer compared the tone and rhetoric to another Las Vegas man who called for a revolution and a cleansing: Jerad Miller, who, along with his wife, Amanda, ambushed and murdered two of Kinch’s fellow officers in June.

Kinch said his posts simply were misconstrued. He was writing in response to news reports, such as Connecticut’s strict gun-control laws, he said. He also was angry about a lack of prosecutions for crimes involving the “knockout game,” in which people try to knock strangers unconscious with a single punch.

But he insisted his comments, no matter how his peers interpreted them, weren’t racist. His posts were about current events and intended for like-minded conservatives, veterans and constitutionalists, he said. They were intended to be abrasive; he wanted to start a conversation, he said.

“I didn’t call for a race war,” Kinch said. “I said, ‘If there was going to be one.’ I didn’t want there to be one. That comment had nothing to do with a particular race. I said all races. That’s why it flies in the face of common sense to make that jump.”

Local activists who reviewed the posts were skeptical of Kinch’s reasoning.

“That’s evil. That’s incredibly scary,” said Laura Martin, a black advocate in Las Vegas who works for the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, after a reporter read her Kinch’s comments.

Martin, who has studied racial and social injustice, wondered whether Metro ordered a mental evaluation or sensitivity training for Kinch.

“There are a lot of good cops, but some of them have really bad attitudes (toward minorities),” Martin said. “They aren’t mentally there. It would be a service to the public if you don’t have a sociopath with weapons going into people’s houses and pulling people over.”

Several of Kinch’s fellow officers who saw the Facebook posts quickly sensed Kinch was heading over a cliff. They begged him, via Facebook, to stop writing.

“You’ve lost your mind. This may be the dumbest s*** you’ve ever posted. That’s saying a lot,” wrote Joe Giannone, a detective in Kinch’s squad.

“Bobby, I’ve known you about twenty years and have a ton of respect for you. Please PLEASE do yourself a solid and don’t air things in this stupid thing called Facebook anymore,” Detective Bradley Nickell wrote.

Nickell, Giannone and Kinch all worked together in Metro’s career criminal section, a unit that includes the department’s highly-specialized fugitive task force and repeat offenders program. Detectives in the section, along with officers in SWAT, come in frequent contact with the city’s most dangerous criminal suspects, some of whom are black.

The only black detective in Kinch’s squad, Joe Winn, was particularly upset, sources said.

The friction eventually spilled into the workplace, officers said, but the unit didn’t have a full-time sergeant supervisor at the time. Instead, the unit’s acting sergeant, who in rank was a peer of Kinch and Winn, ordered the detectives to keep politics away from the job. The acting sergeant also asked Kinch to delete his posts, sources said.

Kinch said he explained himself to Winn and thought the controversy was done.

“It was quashed,” he said.

That should have been the end of it. But staking out homes and chasing fugitives can be long, boring work, and sources said Kinch couldn’t resist popping off to co-workers.

The animosity bubbled to the surface a few months later. But this time, officers went to the unit’s lieutenant with their accusations — and screenshots of Kinch’s Facebook posts.

Lt. Clint Nichols, a longtime supervisor in Metro’s robbery/homicide bureau — and a black man — suspended Kinch immediately.

Nichols had several reasons to take the accusations seriously.

His department was just a few years removed from intense scrutiny of its deadly force policies by the federal government, prompted by several controversial shootings in 2010 and 2011. And a Las Vegas Review-Journal investigation revealed, in part, that Metro officers shot blacks at a higher rate than other races.

The department responded to the controversy by making sweeping changes to its policies, and the number of shootings has decreased in the three years since.

But Kinch’s comments were uncovered just as the nation’s focus honed in on race and policing, after controversial deaths of black men at the hands of police in Ferguson, Mo., and New York City, leading to protests across the country.

Several officers said, while they don’t believe Metro has an extraordinary problem with racial bias, one officer could destroy the department’s credibility.

“What if Kinch shot somebody after saying that stuff, and it got out? You think Michael Brown was bad. This would be worse. You can’t keep (Kinch) on the streets,” a Metro officer said.

Cal Potter, one of Nevada’s most prominent civil rights lawyers, said he always believed race was a huge issue at Metro. He has sued Metro more than a dozen times over the past decades, winning million-dollar judgments for clients.

“They’ve had all these unarmed shootings, and too many of them are black,” Potter said. “My clients are all black.”

Potter said Metro couldn’t tolerate Kinch’s type of behavior. That’s how systemic problems are created.

“These are the root problems of why people are killed,” Potter said. “This officer’s psychological profile should have been exposed at the time of his hiring, but it wasn’t.”

Instead, the internal affairs diversity section reviewed the comments, but because Kinch didn’t specifically identify a race or issue a threat, officials couldn’t determine a racial element.

Not everyone at Metro was satisfied with that resolution. If Kinch didn’t violate the policy on race, was the policy strong enough?

“It didn’t sit well with a lot of people,” said one high-ranking official with knowledge of the case. “It exposes some weaknesses we have in holding cops accountable.”

This raises a critical difference between the national debate with respect to police and race and what happened here in Las Vegas: police officers themselves, from the lower ranks to the detectives and supervisors, were actively involved in trying to address the situation and urging higher ups to take action.

Adding to the concerns among Kinch’s fellow officers, another problem surfaced before internal investigators finished their inquiry.

Investigators received a photo of Kinch, apparently taken at his birthday party, of the detective pointing a handgun at a collectible plate of Obama, a gag gift from friends who knew Kinch disliked the president.

Deputy Chief Gary Schofield, the former head of Metro’s internal affairs bureau, immediately notified the Secret Service’s watch desk in Washington, D.C., telling them a highly-trained officer in Las Vegas with access to weapons could be a threat to the president, sources said.

By the next morning, federal agents were preparing subpoenas to detain Kinch and raid his Las Vegas home, sources said.

“It was about to be a disaster. We had 30 minutes until doors were being kicked in,” an official with knowledge of the case said.

Investigators scrambled to find Schofield, who had the day off from work, or a member of Metro’s executive staff.

Former Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie, who didn’t know about Schofield’s call to the capital, was notified about an hour before federal agents obtained subpoenas. Gillespie was able to mitigate the situation and slow down the federal probe, preventing an embarrassing scandal from becoming public, sources said.

Gillespie, who left office at the beginning of the year, didn’t return a message seeking comment. Neither did new Sheriff Joe Lombardo.

Kinch eventually was interviewed by Secret Service agents, who said they determined he wasn’t a credible threat to the president.

Kinch said he couldn’t go into details about the incident and wouldn’t say whether he pointed a gun at a picture of the president. He said he had to keep quiet because of a pending internal investigation at Metro — initiated by him.

He filed a complaint because the photo in question was taken by his squad’s union rep, Kinch said. The rep, whom Kinch refused to name, held onto the picture for more than a year before trying to use it to ruin him, Kinch said.

“Why would a guy take a picture if he thought there was anything inappropriate?” Kinch asked. “Wouldn’t he be compelled to immediately report it? He didn’t do anything for 14 months.”

Kinch said his union rep was angry because of department politics.

The issue? Kinch said he called for an emergency meeting of the union after several of its top executives, including former District Attorney David Roger, were caught by television cameras at Lombardo’s primary election party.

Roger, the union’s general counsel, shouldn’t have been at Lombardo’s party, Kinch said. The union had overwhelmingly supported underdog candidate Larry Burns, and Kinch and several others felt the executives were undermining the membership to scuttle the endorsement of Burns.

Kinch argued the executives should be fired, and that ticked off some people, he said. Kinch’s union rep came forward with the photo days after Kinch complained, he said.

“Somebody went to somebody,” Kinch said.

Chris Collins, executive director of Kinch’s union, agreed that Kinch made enemies at the department.

“No doubt he’s not a popular guy,” Collins said.

But Collins never thought there was a racial element to the incident. At the same time, however, he never saw Kinch’s “race war” posts on Facebook.

“He doesn’t like the president’s politics,” Collins said. “He’s entitled to his beliefs.”

At least one source said Kinch now must notify the Secret Service of his whereabouts whenever the president visits Las Vegas; other sources said the scrutiny of Kinch never rose to that level.

Kinch downplayed the incident. He said the Secret Service cleared him immediately.

Kinch, by many accounts, has been a good officer and detective without much baggage in his personnel file during his two decades at Metro.

“I never received a bad evaluation,” Kinch said. “In my entire career, I had no suspensions.”

But tragic events in Kinch’s personal life may have permanently altered the detective’s views, sources said.

In June 2007, Kinch’s elderly mother died after a robbery near Lake Mead Boulevard and Simmons Avenue in North Las Vegas.

The 75-year-old woman, Josephine Mascola, left her assisted living home about 2:30 a.m. in a motorized wheelchair. She was independent, Kinch said, and likely was headed to the store or a casino. She was robbed and managed to alert employees at a convenience store but died from an underlying medical condition before she could identify anyone.

Her death was ruled a homicide, but investigators uncovered almost no details about the robbery. No witnesses came forward, and because authorities didn’t know exactly where the incident occurred, they never had a crime scene to investigate.

The loss of Kinch’s mother devastated him but also made him a better detective. Kinch now could empathize with victims of crime.

“I’ve walked in their shoes,” he told a newspaper in 2007.

But sources said Kinch disappeared in his job, blaming his mother’s death on the black gangs that controlled the streets.

There was no evidence, however, that his mother’s assailants were black or even affiliated with a gang. North Las Vegas Police spokeswoman Chrissie Coon said detectives never received a suspect description. The case remains cold.

Kinch was transferred out of the gang unit and sent back to patrol because his superiors worried he was more interested in retribution than doing his job, sources said.

“Everybody liked Bobby,” one officer said. “But whatever happened to his mother affected him to the point where I’m not sure he should be on the street interacting with citizens.”

Kinch acknowledged that he believes a black gang killed his mother, despite the lack of evidence. He conducted his own investigation, independent of North Las Vegas Police, and found a black gang leader had been identified in a similar case not far from where he believed his mother was attacked, he said.

“As a cop, you don’t get paid to believe in coincidences,” he said.

But he challenged the notion that he was booted to patrol, an assignment that comes with less pay and prestige, because he was too deep into his mother’s case. He already had left the gang unit before he discovered the race of his mother’s alleged killer, he said.

Many at the department sympathized with Kinch after his mother’s death. But tragedy isn’t grounds for bigotry, police activists said. If Kinch is suffering, he needs professional help before returning to police work, Martin said.

“It’s scary to think that without evidence, he assumes black people murdered his mother,” Martin said. “One of the things we advocate is that officers go through consistent, periodic mental evaluations. They get them when they’re hired, but they never go through them again.”

Internal investigations and officers’ personnel files aren’t public record in Nevada, but Kinch confirmed he received a written reprimand — the lowest form of department discipline — for breaking the agency’s social media policy.

That surprised many officers, who said they expected the detective to be removed from the street or even fired. It isn’t clear who suggested a written reprimand as punishment, but it likely wasn’t Kinch’s lieutenant.

Nichols, according to sources, sent a five-page memo to his superiors outlining the reasons Kinch could no longer work as an officer. He also refused to allow the detective back in the career criminals section.

Instead, Kinch was transferred to the robbery section, another of Metro’s prestigious detective jobs. By remaining in the same bureau, Kinch was able to maintain the extra pay and benefits afforded by his previous assignment, sources said.

Nichols declined to comment about the Kinch case, citing internal investigations.

But he and other officers were disappointed by the outcome, sources said.

“We had a chance to do the right thing,” an officer said. “It would have been the easiest thing in the world to say (to people), ‘Look, you’re upset with what’s going on in Ferguson? Well, we had an officer here that did this crap, and we fired him. But we dropped the ball.”

Martin said she understands why officers at Metro are afraid to speak out publicly against their bosses. But that makes it harder for the agency to keep an open, honest dialogue with the community.

“In the activist community, we deal with people who always refer to police as pigs or something that derogatory, and we don’t condone that,” Martin said. “But people feel that type of anger because there are good cops out there, but they never call out the bad cops. If I was a Metro officer, I’d be calling out people publicly, my sheriff publicly.

“Would you want to work with someone like that?” Martin asked. “I wouldn’t be able to.”

Kinch said he doesn’t feel his comments were a mistake. He does regret not providing proper context, he said.

And to those who assume he’s a racist?

“That’s pretty retarded,” he said.

Kinch allowed that private citizens likely would be fired for writing the same things he did on Facebook.

“If somebody took that out of context, they might,” Kinch said. “I know another thing about life and especially about Metro. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”

Kinch said he doesn’t hold grudges against the co-workers who turned him in, or Nichols, who suspended him.

“I would probably do the same thing if I was him,” Kinch said.

But he wishes they would have dug into his background or spoken to him. Kinch said he has dated black women and has never been the subject of a citizen complaint. But Nichols never interviewed him before he wrote the memo to Metro’s executive staff.

You can’t just assume someone’s guilty before you have all the evidence, Kinch said.

Lawyers defending suspects Kinch arrested soon could have a chance to test the detective’s credibility in court.

Metro’s robbery section, in a tactic that’s apparently common in police departments nationwide, assigns cases by a suspect’s race. Some detectives investigate primarily white, Hispanic, Asian or black suspects.

Police say it’s easier for officers studying faces to recognize facial features from one ethnic group.

Kinch, according to sources, although still on desk duty, was assigned primarily to investigate minority suspects.

Mike Blasky can be reached at [email protected]