Estelle Atkinson
Las Vegas Review-Journal
LAS VEGAS — More grand jury transcripts released in the case of a Metropolitan Police Department sergeant accused of abusing his power and making unlawful arrests show that while both of his supervisors said they weren’t aware of Kevin Menon’s alleged illegal tactics, his lieutenant was working directly with him during one detention that officers said made them feel particularly uncomfortable, court records show.
Menon’s lieutenant, Travis McMurtry, was also a member of a text group chat in which Menon gave orders that officers testified were unusual and made them feel uncomfortable, court records show.
On May 10, two people were detained at The Cromwell after Menon, acting as an officer in plain clothes without anything identifying him as a police officer, posed as a suspicious person and attempted to hand them what he purported to be fraudulent bills, records show.
Metro Officers Abbygail Armijo and Erik Sanchez placed the two men in handcuffs, believing Menon had probable cause to detain them, and subsequently released them when they realized Menon did not.
After one of the men called 911 to submit a complaint, Menon put on a Metro jacket and responded to the complaint, never revealing he was the person who had tried to give them fake currency, according to his arrest report.
Testifying in front of the grand jury that, on Oct. 9 indicted Menon, who faces charges of oppression and battery, McMurtry said that he was working alongside Menon as a plain clothes officer on May 10.
Events at The Cromwell
McMurtry, who testified that he was never aware of Menon’s actions while Menon was under his supervision, said he remembered Menon and two other officers following the men and “watched from a distance for a little bit.”
The lieutenant was a member of the group chat that Menon and his squad used to communicate, McMurtry said, and remembered seeing a message saying that there was potential fraudulent activity.
As a plain clothes officer, Menon was not supposed to interact with any individuals, let alone attempt to engage them while purporting to engage in criminal activity, multiple officers testified. McMurtry said that he never saw Menon make contact with the men, but merely saw officers walking towards them.
Once he knew they were going to be stopped, McMurtry told the jury he started walking towards the Flamingo. “That was typical during these operations,” McMurtry said. “Once I knew a stop was going to be made, I would just start looking for the next stop.”
McMurtry testified that he wasn’t consistently on his phone, but would review it if “something popped up, and I was interested in what was going on,” or if he saw it on his watch.
In the group chat, Menon instructed officers, “come arrest me in a sec. Soon as I make contact with them. Then detain and identify them.” When the two men wanted to know why they were being detained, Menon sent another message in the group chat saying, “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.”
Menon’s supervisors, officers testify
McMurtry testified that if he had been aware of Menon’s behavior, he would have told the captain and complained to internal affairs. Metro Captain Steve Connell also testified that he had no knowledge of Menon’s actions at the time.
Connell said to the jury that he “wouldn’t have ever approved” an operation involving fraudulent bills or officers detaining their own sergeant. “We’ve never done that in the history of doing stuff out there,” he said.
Armijo testified that she left Menon’s squad because she “didn’t like the way things were being run” and “felt very uncomfortable after some of the situations that I was put in.”
When a juror asked her why she never told her lieutenant or captain about these concerns, Armijo said, “the lieutenant was involved in the group chat as well as out with us most nights, so he was seeing the things that were said in the group chat, and our sergeant would constantly say to us, ‘the captain has my back.’ So it was a little bit uncomfortable for us to go to the lieutenant and the captain.”
Another officer who worked with Menon, Rawlin Behunin, ultimately decided to report Menon’s actions to the union, the Las Vegas Police Protective Association. Behunin testified that he took particular issue with the incident at The Cromwell on May 10, saying, “my lieutenant was maybe 20 feet away while all of this was going on, and I figured there’s no way that he doesn’t know about it.”
“I felt that he had to know about it and that he was okay with it,” Behunin said. Deputy District Attorney Kenneth Portz instructed the jury that the witness, Behunin, “can’t speculate as to what the lieutenant did or did not know,” and that the jury should only consider his testimony in regards to Behunin’s decision to go to the union, instead of his superiors.
McMurtry told the jury that it is never OK for an officer or sergeant to create a ruse that would generate reasonable suspicion or probable cause to detain someone, records show.
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